Driven to distraction

Once school lets out, Catherine will have a new assignment: Learning to drive while the days are long and the weather is nice. She’s more than a little nervous about the prospect and I can’t say I blame her, especially given the nonsense I witness on the road every day.

People talking on their phones.

People texting on their phones.

People eating behind the wheel, applying makeup, shaving, doing their hair.

There is a whole subset of driver these days who runs red lights and stop signs, casting an angry glare at you as if YOU did something wrong.

And please don’t forget the people who back out of spaces without looking first.

Today in the CVS parking lot, I had the good fortune to park next to a family from Jersey that was having a whole meeting about getting the cake they’d bought into the car and on to wherever they were headed.

They had all four doors flung wide like elephant ears, and there was no way I could shimmy my way past them and into my car with the Father’s Day cards, deodorant and dental floss I’d scored with the 20% off coupon.

I stood there, waiting.

For a long time.

Finally, one of them asked if I needed to get in my car (like, would I be watching them for entertainment or something?!).

Those of you lucky enough to know me will be proud that I managed to bite back a sarcastic retort along the lines of, “No, I’m glad to stand here in the middle of the parking lot all day.” I instead thanked them. Then sat in the hot car and waited some more while they sorted out whose lap the cake would ride on.

This particular parking lot is one Catherine has already been told to steer clear of until she has a bunch of driving experience under her belt.

Some days, though, I think maybe it would be best if she drove only in parking lots.

After my CVS trip, an older guy in a Lexus cut me off in the traffic circle near our house, giving me the fashionable, “thank-you” wave rude motorists seem to be using these days, as if that somehow makes it all better.

As his gold watch winked in the sunlight, I almost offered him another kind of salute, but remembered just in time that I’m supposed to be a lady.