(no subject)

Uffda Uffda Hot Dish POLKA n Shit

Sorry. That's a super mean thing for me to say.
But this is rattling 'bout my head and will likely persist 'till I write it. So here goes.

Drove past multiple 'traffic jams' on my way to work today. That's in quotes because they aren't really 'jams' at all. Traffic Jams are the result of Too Many Cars, Not Enought Road. What we had instead was the creation of far too many (Stereo?)Typical Minnesotan drivers with DEEP-SEATED mental health issues. I've named this problem 'Winner Syndrome.'

Have you ever considered that Those Other Drivers Might Pass You when you exit? Thought about it long and hard and for hours at a time? Does the thought horrify you? Do you awaken amidst sweat-soaked sheets from recurrent dreams of other people's taillamps? Shake your fist in rage at those Feculent Stains on All Humanity, driving by at posted speeds as you decelerate to leave the highway? Then you've got Winner Syndrome.

As with most any mental disorder delineated in a DSM (Roman numeral goes here), there's several subtypes.
Let's start with the folks on my surprisingly short daily commute:

Thomson Reuters (Westlaw) short-and-curly scruffbuckets: Typically drives a German sedan-to-SUV from their five-to-seven bedroom in the deep south 'burbs. Stays in the speed lane, but slows to 32 MPH on a 70 MPH, six-lane highway a half mile away from their exit...at least 'till they figure out how to cross ALL lanes of traffic without 'losing' to any driver. Once that's strategized, STOMP goes the gas pedal and three-to-four hundred horses scream to life. Would sooner race into the shoulder at hight speeds, slam into a bridge abutment and die than get passed. Truth be told? A couple have.

Highway 110 Leaders of the Pack: Drive mere 'average' cars (horrors!) so they can't 'win' races with merging cars. Or are they? What if they slow wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy the hell down instead? If the other car's a quarter-mile or more ahead...they didn't 'lose' a race at all! It's a whole new race--and they're the pace car! Yay! Who's in charge of the highway NOW?!?!

Cty Road 42 Left Turn (Bleep)offs: South 'Burbers who know DAMN well they've gotta take a left turn to shop at Target/Kohls/whatever other Big Box the other soulless beige-box-living, pretty-car-driving mutha-shet-cho-moufs are also crowding around. But they'll drive 25 in the 50 MPH zone, like the Thomson Reuters types (which shouldn't surprise anyone--c'mon, they're the same damned people) until they can gun the pedal in the left turn lane and hopefully make the turn at 70, tipping on a single wheel.

And then there's the folks who'd sooner take a front bumper/turn signal/monster truck tire to the forehead than let you in. Fine, I'll admit it. I rolled down both passenger windows this morning at one of THOSE and Corporal-to-Private barked HEY! My car will is NOT going to simply disappear! which wasn't necessarily the nicest thing to say? But it remained topical, profanity-free and several levels of grace above I will personally march OUT of this car and belt you one. Which is hardly what I said, either. Okay, perhaps the tone did. But the words did not. So there ya go.