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Old People Should Not Drive Large Cars
2003-10-01 - 12:47 a.m.


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Old people should not drive large cars.

I thought this today as an old man cut me off, albeit very slowly, driving a rather large GM Avalanche.

I know what he was thinking when he bought it, or perhaps one of his children bought it, I don't know about that.

'I want to have a lot of metal inbetween me and whatever I hit.'

But why, old man?  You're gonna' die soon anyway.  Makes sense, spare the life of the one closest to death.

Then I went down the road, and wanted to get ahead of a tanker truck, because the road narrowed down to one lane each way.   No problem, just get behind this grey Celebrity.  No worries.  And then I sat and watched the fucker idle through the right turn, after waiting for the light to change.  Old man leaning dangerously askew in his car.

I snapped and shouted, which is something I rarely do.  Normally I just look at people like that, and if exhasperation strikes at the elderly, I say something like, "Oh...!you're OLD."

They swarmed the supermarket like zombies from night of the living dead.  I couldn't figure it out, and still haven't.  It was like it was the first, and they hadn't gotten a check in months, randy and ready to slowly troll about town, buying food for the cat and making extremely slow right turns.  Grey ghosts of confused eyes and wisps of silver hair flashing by in poorly driven large cars.  Withered husks of humanity killing time until they die.  Waiting to die.

Which is fine, really.  On a certain level, that's what most of us do, moodying about in the plebiscite pacifistic democracy we call home.   I should have asked the annoying girl at the bowling alley, after she told me she NEEDED a new SUV, a LARGER SUV, because THIS one wasn't BIG enough, exactly why she thought she needed it, and after the kids flee the nest, what next with your life?  What have you accomplished consumer.

Why do you need an overly large automobile?   'Because I want one' is not an acceptable answer.

I wish we could all reach out at the same time and make a change in the world, for a vision of something better.

Or we could all sit around in a bar somewhere, killing time in rituals of mis-directed energy, until we die.  Pool.  Darts.  Drinking.

'Nice bar'

'Thank you'  he croaked.


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