Why can't the whole world just drive like I do?

Or at least stay out of my way?

So it's a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the kind of day that makes Murphy not want to come in out of his run. But he had to come in because I had to go to work this afternoon, so after a bit of "consolation fetch", I brought him in and headed off to make some badly-needed money.

I'm already running a touch late but it's Sunday so I expect to be able to make up that time by not being caught up in the regular commuter salmon run. However I wind up stuck behind a Mecedes convertible on the winding two-land road that I have to travel for the first twnty miles of my trip. And because it's a nice day, Joe Mercedes has the top down and he's just cruising along in total non-coordination with the speed limit. The speed limit is 50mph, (and I should be making turns for 60mph) but I'm held down to about 43mph because that's all thhat he seems to want to do and this road has about as many passing zones as the Obama Administration has ethical, competent people in it.

Now I could pass this guy across the double yellow line, but since more than one county deputy has asked me nicely to refrain from doing such things, I just clench the steering wheel that much tighter and wait for the only legal passing zone on this stretch of road, a small one about two miles ahead.

We finally hit that passing zone and I blast past Pokey McPoke and ramp the speed up to try to make up for lost time. But this just isn't my day, because as I get to the next stop-light-controlled intersection, the light goes red for me and I have to come to a stop.

Ok, this would not ordinarily annoy me in the slightest, because once past that light, it's a cool eleven more miles to the multi-lane highway and I could run that in 10 minutes easy. But on this day, as I slow for the changing light, what do I see waiting to turn off of the connecting road onto my road ahead of me but a tractor-trailer rig loaded down with lengths of pipe. Seriously?! Aaarrgh!!!!!

So I stop at the light and I watch this ponderous truck pull out into the roadway ahead of me, followed closely by a conga line of cars that have already been stuck behind him for who-only-knows how many miles. And that line of cars ensures that no matter what I do, I'll never be able to bogart past that truck, passing lanes ahead or not. In short, I'm doomed to schedule fail.

And as icing on the cake, the Mercedes pulls up right on my back bumper. Yeah, the Mercedes whose deliberate lack of velocity has now placed me permanently behind this parade of slow-moving vehicles, now held down to crawler speed by the truck ahead that's low-gearing it up and down the hills on this road.

I so want to get out of my vehicle, walk back, and rabbit-punch this guy. In fact, it's taking every bit of my resolve to keep me from opening my door, especially when I look in my mirror and catch him smirking like Joe Biden at a campaign event. There should be a magic number you could dial on your phone at times like this, maybe a *76 or something that causes a traffic referree to magically appear--a referree empowered to hear the facts of your complaint and award aggrieved drivers like myself either a sum of money or the right to deliver one free rabbit-punch to the offending driver, much like a free-throw at a basketball game as a remedy for a foul.

But alas, this is not a perfect world and there are no magic traffic referrees available. So I just sigh, then curse and swear for the next eleven miles, which took me almost twenty minutes instead of ten. Grumble, grumble....It's going to take more than a cup of coffee to untwist this day, and it's just starting.