Interstate 410 and Me

On the way to The Kid's swimming lesson yesterday I was composing a love letter in my head, a love letter to the interstate.

I got on the interstate without anyone speeding up and trying to run me off the road as I merged into the right lane. No one tailgated me and made obscene gestures because I was driving the speed limit. No car tried to zip past me on the right shoulder as I took our exit. It was the perfect freeway experience. Everyone used their signals and merged politely and played/drove fair.

Not even the little girl who kept walking past me and dragging her sticky wet lollipop across my leg during The Kid's swim class could dampen my burning love for the interstate.

Then, on the way home, a middle-aged guy in a red Jeep (yeah, you know who you are) honked, cut me off and flipped me off, all in one seemingly effortless road ragey move, and I breathed a sad little farewell to my love of the interstate.

And now I have to go explain to The Kid what "flip me off" means, cause he's sure to read this.

Photo courtesy of TexasFreeways.com

Saying Sorry

On the way to go swimming last night we were nearly in an accident. (I remember from a very real accident a few years ago that police never say accident, they say “crash”.) It wasn’t too scary – no one was going that fast, not us tooling down the street a few feet from a traffic light, and not the car full of kids who pulled right into our path from the grocery store parking lot. Lefty braked and swerved and the other car stopped short and this is the amazing part – the driver of the other car looked up and said “I’m sorry” to me through the passenger window.

No one in San Antonio has ever said I’m sorry for any traffic related behavior – and I have been on the receiving end of some very aggressive driving. In fact, when we first moved here I was terrified of driving on the various high-speed loops and interstates that everyone else uses to get from one side of town to another. I can get almost anywhere in the city using back roads and a few major midsized streets.

I did eventually train myself to drive on the interstate without too much freaking out. The hardest part is not letting the jaw grinding speed and angst of your fellow drivers rub off on you. I try to drive peacefully. I try to be Zen driver on 410. Come on in, there’s room for everyone on the interstate, I say to nervous folks on the ramp trying desperately to squeeze into traffic. If we each let one other person in, wouldn’t that solve a lot of these merge headaches?

Lefty prescribes to a similar theory. He always lets someone in, unless they’re driving a much nicer car than ours. He just loves to let old rusty Volvos into traffic, but if you’re driving a new Lexus, forget it.

Having to drive almost everywhere is one of the things we don’t love about San Antonio, but we have learned to take it in stride. I try to drive with my sense of humor riding shotgun, and if I make a mistake, I try to remember to say I’m sorry.