Tongue-In-Cheek … Foot-In-Mouth

I’m terrific at stealing the covers.  I’m like amazing at it.  I could teach a college course in it.  I’d call it “Hogging The Covers, Stay Nice And Cozy, You Selfish SOB, While Your Spouse Turns Into A Human Popsicle 101.”

But frozen spouses aside; we are all familiar with the old proverb, which I just made up: “No matter how awful you are at something, there is always some other loser out there who stinks even worst than you do.”  This is a very comforting maxim, especially when your golfing buddies are shooting eagles, birdies, and other assorted fowl, while laughing themselves into fits of hysteria, because your handicap looks less like a handicap and more like a long distance phone number.

However, the point here is not just about being a crappy golfer; the point here is that NO matter what activity you can dream up—from road kill removal to hemorrhoid lancer—someone will be the world’s worst at it.

RANDOM EXAMPLE

Scene: Saturday, 11:01 AM, Scrimshaw Class

Teacher:  “Well, Mike, that’s looks great!  An exact scale replica of The Eiffel Tower, complete with a French woman standing next to it who obviously hasn’t shaved her legs or armpits since before the invention of hair, all carved out of a Sperm Whale’s tooth.  You are the world’s best.   Congratulations!   And then over here we have John, who has successfully whittled off his thumb.  John, you stink, and may I suggest you take up a hobby which does not require the use of sharp objects like, for instance, pillow fluffing.”

Okay, so we just touched upon an activity which really doesn’t have much meaning to most of us—whittling—unless, of course, you enjoy shaving off pieces of your body.  But there is one activity of which impacts EVERYBODY, especially ME, and that would be driving.

Look, everyone knows that I am the world’s greatest driver, mainly because I keep telling everyone that.  And inherent in this activity, like in every activity, you will have the best (me) people in the middle (that would be you and people standing to your right and left) and then there is the worst, and that would be the woman I work with.

Now, I’m NOT saying that ALL women are bad drivers, actually, witnessing a women painting on eye-liner, while steering with her left knee, changing the radio dial with her right foot, while speeding around an rotary on wet icky asphalt, is quite impressive.  But I am saying that this particular woman IS the worst driver.

So, it was a Friday around noon.   A group of my co-workers wanted to go out to lunch.  Unfortunately, we had ten people, but only two cars, each which held four people.  And if you do the math, we have two people who must either ride on the hood or thumb a ride to the restaurant.  That’s when the new girl chimed in, offering up her car to take her, and you guessed it, me.  I figured what the heck.

HOWEVER, unbeknownst to me, the new girl came equipped with a foot which weighed approximately 3000-pounds, as evidenced by the fact that she ALWAYS drives 900 MPH, even in her garage.  And she took EVERY corner on two wheels while.  And the resulting centrifugal force glued me to the roof of the vehicle.  NASA astronauts should experience so many G-Forces.

To make matters worse, the new girl ONLY looked straight ahead: never to the right, never to the left, but ONLY straight ahead.  She did not care what was going on along side her, to include the state troopers who were violently waving machines guns at US in an attempt to get HER to pull over.  It was like I was being driven by a plow horse wearing blinders, with all apologies to plow horses.

I’m not kidding around here: if something wasn’t happening right in front of her, and I mean RIGHT in front of her, she didn’t care.  And when she’d change lanes, because she was looking straight in front of her, she would simply steer the car over into the next lane WITHOUT first looking to see if anyone else was in the lane along side her, because they were NOT in front of her, so she didn’t care.  So while I clutched anything I could get my hands on, basically holding on for dear white-knuckled life, she’d continue to steer into lane after lane after lane.  I would have had a smoother ride if I had gone over Niagara Falls in a paper bag.

Of course no discussion about her driving ability would be complete without addressing her “controlled rolling stops,” which according to her “are no big deal,” BUT according to police records and numerous police lineup appearances, is a euphemistic statement roughly translated means “running a stop sign.”

Anyway, if by some act of fate, by which I mean at knife-point, I do find myself as her passenger again, I will duct taped my torso to her trunk.  That way I will be outside, and the nice pursing state troopers will be able to hear me calmly encourage them to rescue me.

EXAMPLE

Me: “HELP!  HELP!  LEAD FOOT HAS LOST IT!  SHE’S OUT OF HER EVER-LOVING MIND!  SHOOT OUT THE (NASTY WORD) TIRES!  HELLLLPPPPP!”