The Passing Game
Ever play the Passing Game on the highway? I had several people playing this game during my drive to Akron for Independence Day. Here’s how you play. Find a long stretch of main highway, and set your cruise control. The best highways to use have curves and hills. Now wait for someone to pass you and begin playing. They will beat your speed by 10 mph and travel several cars past you. Then, they will slow down to 10 mph under your speed so you can pass them. Now repeat it again! Inclines in the highway add interest to the game. You will travel up the hill, maintaining precise speed, while the other players fall far behind. Once you pass the peak, the other players will zip past you. The worst players will cut in front immediately, sending a plume of exhaust through your ventillation system. Phew!
I wonder what thoughts go through these people’s heads? Do they realize they keep passing me? Do they think I am the one speeding up and slowing down? Do they think there are a lot of similar cars on the road? Do different songs on the radio make them drive faster or slower? Am I giving them too much credit about having thoughts?
July 13th, 2003 at 7:12 am
Oh Man! You’ve just hit my wife’s Hot-Point to a “T”! She gets SO annoyed when people start playing the passing game with her. It’s only when she’s driving, however. Me, I just chalk it up to general population stupidity.
Granted, there are times when I’m driving home from work on 270 and I realize that I had been day dreaming a bit and my speed has fallen down some … then I speed back up … then I start thinking about something else … then my speed starts to slow down. Course, I SHOULD be thinking about uhh … DRIVING. At least I don’t speed up when I’m not 100% concentrating on driving! But I don’t think I ever play the passing game with someone since if I realize that someone REALLY wants to pass me by, I’ll pull over to next lane over to let them pass.
I think Andrea can even tell when someone is ABOUT to play the passing game with her. This annoys her SO much. I’ve tried to give her the “Hey, who the hell cares?” speech, but to no avail. So we’ll be driving along and she’ll kind of spit out …
Andrea: “Look! This guy (Always seems to be a “guy” … Hmmm) is going to pass me when I just passed him! God, I hate that! Don’t you hate that when people do that?!?!?!”
Me: “Uhhh … yea! How dare people do that! … What were you talking about now?”
Andrea: See! Here he comes again after I JUST passed him!
Me: You’d think some people would turn on their cruise control and be done with it!
Andrea: There he goes! I can’t believe some people.
Me (Thinking to myself): Hey, that looks like Eric Long!