Mad Driving

I was lying in bed, sipping my coffee and looking out the window when the phone rang. It was my husband who had left for work not ten minutes before. “The roads are fine,” he said. What a considerate guy. You might think he called with my safety in mind, to reassure me and quell any anxiety I might have about driving to work in the craziness of rush hour. You’d be wrong. He was simply overcome with what can be described as road condition enthusiasm, and just had to share it with someone.
Road conditions, traffic, accidents, and weather are lumped into the same category, and they all consume my husband when he’s driving the car. One night we were enjoying a leisurely drive on a dark, two-lane highway. The children were asleep in the back seat under heaps of blankets. We were listening to nice music and having a nice conversation when it happened: red brake lights ahead. He disconnected like a pulled plug. He could no longer converse, joke or hear. He was consumed with the driving conditions. He leaned out the window, trying to get a distance view. He gripped the wheel even though our speed hovered near 10mph and he could have steered with his knee. Finally, he spoke - or more accurately, he exploded: “There must be an accident. This can’t be regular traffic. There had better be a body in the road.”
I punched him on the shoulder.
“I’m going to get off and go around,” he muttered. “Look for a map.” I pretended to file through the junk in the glove compartment. We both knew there were no exits ahead. I could see steam rising off the crown of his head. He switched lanes, glaring at the car to our right. I looked at the two octogenarians in the Toyota next to us. My husband banged his palm on the wheel. “I can’t believe they haven’t widened the road. This is outrageous!”
Normally, he is a peaceful man with hardly any temper to speak of, possessing a gentle way with strangers. But put him in the car, and he turns into a mad traffic expert with tunnel vision and bilateral deafness who knows a better way to build off-ramps, time traffic lights, and direct traffic patterns in all commercial areas.
I suggested, once, that he lend his expertise to the department of transportation, but he just threw me a double whammy glare that singed the hairs on my neck. Now I ride in silence, enjoying the sound of my own daydreams and pretending I’m not related to the driver.

*Published in Washington Woman Magazine, Feb. 2006

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