One of the longer parts of the vacation is the drive home. Getting to the cabin by the lake is lightning fast, but the meander back is always sluggish, hot, and nearly endless. And the way people drive: it doesn't help.
Let me first describe how I drive: I drive fast. I keep right except to pass. I use cruise control to maintain a consistent speed and make obvious, deliberate moves so you know what I'm doing well ahead of time. Stay out of my way and I'll stay out of yours.
Now let me describe how they drive: slow, in the left lane, with eyes closed and hands clamped over their ears chanting "LA LA LA LA LA LA!"
Slower traffic keep right the signs advise. Keep right except to pass, they say. MOVE OVER IBIOT says my snarling grill up their backside. Nope. Their taxes paid for this left lane, and they have a right to be there. Besides ("LA LA LA LA LA LA") they have no idea I'm even there.
And don't ever believe stupid people can't be cunning. Who do you think invented "the box"? Yes, the box, wherein the slow car in the left lane matches pace with the slow car in the right lane to create a cunningly perfect trap for unsuspecting traffic, which pattern, successfully executed, can generate up to 1.21 gigawatts of highly charged frustration: enough to power hundreds of exotic curse words at extremely high volume. I would much rather be using that energy to press the gas pedal down to GET AWAY FROM THESE NORONS, but there you are; we all have to share the road and, as it turns out, vehicle mounted machine guns are illegal.
1. Join a volunteer fire department. Make sure it's the kind where they still give their members the magnetized flashing lights for the top of their vehicles.
2. Have fun.
You can buy those lights at Radio Shack (or Circuit-whatever-they-call-it-these-days). Just don't mess around with it too much. Some guy in the States just got arrested about a week ago for impersonating an officer - he was pulling over drivers to harass them and got caught when he pulled over a real cop. Yeah. Oops!
My personal favourite are those other morons, the ones which you've been behind for about a billion kilometres on that single lane, unpassible stretch of highway, travelling at farm tractor speeds. Those morons who then see fit to hammer it the moment the passing lane appears.
Why? Sweet mother of the gods, why? Why do they do this?
It's not like the road is that much straighter, or the asphalt any smoother. Or the fear of fluffy bunnies leaping in front of their grills any less. And they've just proven that they can, oh yes they can, travel faster than the speed limit. And oh, so aggravatingly slower.
Vehicle-mounted heavy weapons should be allowed. Encouraged even.
You know, Peter, this might be the perfect vehicle for describing your "laser + points" penalty system to everyone...