Jackie Wells-Fauth
I admit it, I am a small-town girl who is used to small-town roads. And when I say small-town roads, I mean roads maybe wide enough for two lanes and maybe paved with oil rather than gravel, or maybe not. This is my idea of a road; where the worst thing you are likely to face is a large piece of farm machinery in a no passing zone.
That is why attempting to drive in large cities has always been difficult for me. Imagine small town girl meets 8-lanes of fast-moving traffic and little idea of where she is going and you will be imagining me, trying to drive in Minneapolis this past month.
Possibly the worst part of the experience is the fact that my lack of preparation for such a driving adventure is really pathetic. It would be like trying to send a blind baby with one arm into the ring against Rocky Balboa and expecting a win for the babe in the woods!
I never pull out onto a two-lane highway unless all traffic is off the road and has been parked in their own driveways for ten minutes. In Minneapolis, there is never such a thing as a “break in traffic.” What they do have is, “now is the time, take your life in your hands and pull out like all the demons of hell are after you.” Even at that, if you don’t have at least three cars swerve around you with horns blaring, you have done something wrong.
When I am driving at home, I always pick a lane and remain there, even if that lane is the gravelly hump on the side of a gravel path, which forces you to drive in the ditch part of the way. You never move to the center of a road and once you have picked your lane, you stick with it like you are a cow coming down a chute with no chance to veer to right or left.
In Minneapolis, while I was driving the speed limit and fearing to move even a touch to my right or left, I was several times witness to what I like to call the “side scramble.” A driver on my left would cut in front of my car and then veer a little further over, into the next lane, then slice in front of a speeding truck to the lane after that, and on and on until they had somehow, at breakneck speed and in impossible traffic, cut their way diagonally across all five or six lanes of traffic, just so they could exit! Now, if I were to execute that maneuver, I would definitely have to take the nearest exit so I could clean out my underwear and lie down until my heart had stopped pounding into my mouth. It was terrifying to watch and it occurred over and over!
My tactic for getting through the heavy traffic was to do what I do when I am traveling on the two-lane US highway at home: I pick a lane and then never leave it. The problem with this procedure in a major city? Well, the lane you are in can be going along fine and then, while you are clinging to it like a monkey to its mother swinging through trees, suddenly, a sign will appear out of the corner of your eye that says something like: “Get out of this lane, unless you are planning to exit to a new road.” Or “Right lane closed ahead, get out of it a mile ago!” or, “Hey, Mario Andretti, this is the east bound lane and you are supposed to be going west!”
Suddenly, that lane which had been your friend for several miles, has pulled the rug out from underneath you and now, instead of heading east, towards Stillwater, you find yourself in the northbound lane on the way for a fun-filled week in Duluth. And when you look around at the traffic to get to the exit, you know you will be spending the week in Duluth because there is no way you are going to be capable of performing the “side scramble” to get to the exit.
I am home again from my fun-filled week on the highway to hell, so that means I am once again driving under the speed limit, stopping at every stop sign until the whole road looks like a deserted apocalyptic byway and waving happily at all of the machinery I encounter in my path. I do not miss all of those cars in such a hurry to get to so many places and furthermore, I will have everyone know that I am very happy that there are crossroads and not exits on my super highway. Happy driving, everyone!
dropsinthewell 