CALL ME MELLOW YELLOW

I am either getting old and mellow or drivers of the world are getting better.

I find it very hard to believe it is the latter.

But I recently made a trip to Florida, and during that entire time, I don’t think I said one inappropriate word to another driver, and my wife and I never had a single exchange that contained the phrase, “Do YOU want to drive?”

Normally when we drive long distances, I reach my destination with large veins protruding all over my forehead. I think I may actually grow new veins for the express purpose of being mad at other drivers.

I will acknowledge I have mellowed over the years. But bad driving has been one crucial hot button issue that can get me fired up 10 times out of 10.

Until this last trip. Nine hours I spent in the car. And not once did I question another driver’s origins, or suggest another destination for him. And that usually happens before I’m out of our neighborhood.

But is can’t just be the collective driving acumen has improved. After all, I still had to drive through Atlanta, which designs all of its roads based on the following questions: “What is the likelihood that we can get out-of-towners confused and make them end up in a section of town where they will no doubt help out the ammunition-based economy?” A friend of mine named Jeff summed up Atlanta thusly: “They need to build a loop for the loop.”

My wife is from Atlanta, and she still gets turned around in some areas. I am pretty sure that most people who live in Atlanta were originally just passing through on family trips, tried to get on I-85 and ended up circling the city, stuck on the inner lane of I-285, unable to get to an exit. If you roll down your window in Atlanta, you can hear parents explaining to their children that this is their new home, and they will surely make friends when they run out of gas. Of course, if you roll down your window in Atlanta, you will also very likely be shot in the ear. That is why so many people use cell phones in Atlanta. The Nokia Kevlar 6000 is a very big seller there.

So despite enduring that traffic, I was still in a fairly jovial mood. And as I stated earlier, it usually doesn’t take much time for (a) me to share words with a fellow motorists and (b) my wife to tell me that it was not necessary and (c) me to offer her the option of driving, while I very seriously consider simply exiting the car at 70 mph.

In addition to not having her get on to me for engaging other drivers, she also did not offer any helpful pointers. I think I have pretty much broken my wife of her habit of assisting me in my motoring. She used to offer up such tips like, “There’s a car up there” and “That guy’s turning” and “Brake.” But after several thousand delicate explanation sessions, I think we are finally on the same page: when traffic gets heavy and congested, I will continue to drive as I always have and she will close her eyes and hum Christmas songs. It works quite well.

After Atlanta, there were some smaller country roads, and those are usually littered with blood pressure jump starters such as log trucks, dogs, and toothless people wandering aimlessly on the side of the road. But this time, there were either no distractions of this ilk, or I just kinda tuned them out. Who am I, and what have I done with Mike?

Other signs point to the fact that I may be chilling out. As we started off on the trip, I told my wife that I wanted to stop at a Cracker Barrel. After all, anywhere that you can get meatloaf any time of the day is OK by me. So we stopped at our first Cracker Barrel on the west side of Georgia. When we pulled in, we saw an incredibly congested parking lot, overflowing with families. We realized that it was 12:30 on a Sunday, and the church crowd was hitting the eats big time. So, we decided to drive a little more. Well, when we stopped in Alabama an hour later, we were greeted with a comparable sized crowd. It was at that point that I realized we had crossed into the Central Time Zone, and it was therefore 12:30 on a Sunday again. Rather than putting my hand deep inside the airbag, as I might have done in the past, I actually laughed about this.

I guess I am just getting to be a calm and soft old man. I mean, if the rigors of Atlanta traffic can’t get me fired up, what in the world can? Maybe being a parent is good for me. Maybe it teaches me patience and…hang on a second…I SAID TURN BARNEY OFF! IT IS NAP TIME!!! DO NOT MAKE ME COME IN THERE AGAIN! I’m sorry, where were we? Oh, that’s right. Mellow. So mellow.