A Notable Return

Wow, yes, it has been 2 months since my last update! I imagine most people have lost interest at this point, but this is still a great outlet for me when things get a little wacky in the slug world. Yesterday was one of those times.

I’ve been getting lazy lately because I’ve established a predictable routine of riding with the same people nearly every day. Yesterday, that routine was shattered when work got in the way and my driver couldn’t leave work on time. So, in true flexible slugging tradition, I slipped on my comfortable shoes and hoofed it over to the slug-hub at the Pentagon. I stepped into line behind two men and watched anxiously as cars drove through the lane. When you slug from the Pentagon, you have much less predictable circumstances, and the drivers are from all over the place. You don’t really come to know the characters that you will ride with, so it’s a crap-shoot. Anyway, I stood in line and watched this nice, brand new, really sweet Mercedes pull up with a really attractive guy driving, but as my luck dictates, he took the two men in front of me and didn’t offer to take a third person. I waited only about two more minutes for the next car, and appearances were definitely deceiving!

The driver was a 30-something black woman in a nice, clean, bright red sedan. I figured that it would be an uneventful ride during which I could get a few quick minutes of rest. HA! Instead, I got in and before we got to the ramp of the HOV, she lifts her leg and farts toward me. She rips one out, and then looks at me to see if I noticed. I was too shocked to actually react, so I just smiled and looked out the window. After the interior air was sufficiently blanketed in fart gas, she made a comment about being sleepy and needing to open the windows. My first instinct was to roll my window all the way down, but I decided to be a little more subtle. We hit the open road with a few cracked windows and my wool coat covered in leftover Mexican lunch gas, and she started to suck on a 20oz bottle of coke. She wasn’t just drinking it, she was sucking on it. Each suck was followed by a dramatic lip smacking and open-mouthed sigh of satisfaction. She was doing this about 10 or 12 times in a row before putting the bottle back into the holder. Meanwhile, she continued to fill the car up with noxious butt fumes and started to drift in and out of her lane. She was driving like a drunk driver, only she was drunk on Coke and red beans and rice. I was frozen in my seat by panic and a fear of deep breaths, and she decided to step it up a level by picking up her cell phone to make a call! I thought the stress was going to push me into an anxiety attack that would require us all to pull over and get out.

She got on her phone and did a lot of “mmhmm, yeah girrrrrrl, I know you right” and “mmm, you ain’t got to tell him a damn thing.” All the while, she was swerving the car in emphasis depending on the direction her “free” hand was waving on the steering wheel. She blabbered on for about 5 miles, and my heart was now approaching a full-stop. Finally, she tells her friend on the phone “girl, I be so tired I can’t hold my eyes open. I hope I make it home.”

S E R I O U S L Y?????????????

I turn to the guy in the backseat to see if he is paying attention to all this, but he has his earphones in and his nose buried in his scarf! Smart bastard!

She hung up her phone, sucked on some more Coke, and started to pick her teeth with her freshly designed finger nails. I am assuming she had to clear out the remainder of lunch that wasn’t being cycled through her colon. She picked, sucked, swerved, and farted her way all the way down the HOV while I panicked, gagged, and prayed. After several near-misses and major horn blows from neighboring drivers who didn’t appreciate her loose lane standards, she moved over to the right lane where her drifts were primarily focused on the wake-up strips on the outside of the white line. Apparently, she’s a heavy sleeper because she rode on the “wake-up” strip for about a half a mile at one point and didn’t bother to correct.

When I arrived at the lot, I went to take off my seat belt and realized that I had death-gripped the belt and dug my fingernails into my own flesh. Normally I have a low tolerance for pain, but the panic did a manual override on pain and I didn’t notice. The backseat guy hopped out blissfully unaware of our near-death experiences, or at least unfazed by them. I detached my fingernails from the palm of my hand and fumbled with the seat belt before launching myself out of her car. When she drove off very slowly down the middle of the road, I had to sit on the curb and regain my composure. I had so much adrenaline coursing through my veins that I almost couldn’t sit still. I was so very happy to get behind the wheel of my car, and I was keeping a very close eye out for her around town from now on.

I decided today was a good day to drive to work.