Driving on the Interstate

          It occurred to me as I was driving home from the casino on the interstate with traffic all around and all of the drivers speeding that I was actually driving in a NASCAR race at half speed with halfwit drivers surrounding me on a seventy mile track. All of the cars were bigger than mine and the tractor-trailers were four or five times my size and nearly forty times my weight. One tiny screw up and we would be in a twenty or thirty car pileup. The winds were whipping from the north at one moment and from the south the next minute, making it difficult to control the car. All the way home I had visions of twisted metal, spilling fuel and flames as high as a two-story house. My only comfort was that we had both lost most of our gambling stake, so our money wouldn’t have gone up in the flames with us. Road work was going on at several spots, so there were pit crews bobbing on and off the track. One slow-moving rig was spraying new center lines on the track, squeezing it down to one lane, while the shoulder side had a drop off due to the new pavement. It was tough for me to slide through the gap and impossible for the tractor-trailer in front to give way to the painter and not drop off the shoulder on the other side. The big rig swayed for an incredibly long, yet few seconds as my life flashed before me and I begged forgiveness for my lifting that package of Hostess cupcakes from the corner confectionery those 60 some years ago. I saw a movie once where the actor said, “You never know when you will experience your last kiss.” I was just hoping at that moment that my last kiss wasn’t my rectum passing through my lips as the line of cars behind me squashed our car like a bug between them and the tractor-trailer ahead of us.