Driving me to drink...

Well it's finally happened. Someone's thrown produce at me. I knew it was bound to happen one day. I've always believed it would be rotten eggs or tomatoes, so imagine my surprise when I saw an orange hurtling towards me at 65MPH. The juicy details... I was driving down a two lane highway on my way to work, when a trucker traveling in the opposite direction chunks a half-eaten orange out his side window. The airborne citrus heads straight for my windshield and I, of course, duck like an idiot and shout pleasantries.

Strangely though, I'm not at all surprised by the orange incident. It kind of fits in with everything I've experienced, in the 90 days that I've been here, concerning Ohio's drivers, the laws and the roadways. Ohio's slogan, 'The Heart Of It All' really implies 'The Hotbed Of All The Crazy'.


This is the bumper of my car. Those two holes? Ohio's version of "Hi. Welcome to the neighborhood." My next door neighbor felt a casserole or fruit basket too trite. He felt the better way to welcome me into the neighborhood was to get wasted and ram two ginormous holes in my car. So thoughtful.

That was three weeks ago. My car is still in the shop! Hopefully, I'll have it back by the weekend. In the meantime, however, I've been driving a rental. Worst. Rental. Ever. I really have no idea what kind of car it is. It's got a Chevy emblem on its grill but it kind of looks like a PT Cruiser. The only marking I see on it is HHR. I figure that stands for Horrendous Hatch-backed Rental. So I've just been calling it the PT Loser. The thing is nothing but a giant blind spot. Which comes in real handy when trying to navigate Ohio's interstates. I truly believe that the interstate system up here was designed by a toddler with a broken crayon. Someone handed little Timmy a sheet of paper, he scribbled a bunch of circles and lines, and construction began.

I've encountered several exit ramps and access ramps that are combined as one. Folks trying to merge onto the interstate are battling against those who are trying to exit in the same location. It's like shuffling two decks of cards together. Another fun thing is what I've taken to calling Highway Roulette. Lanes end, with no warning, they just end. Gone! Now I'm not talking about a right hand lane ending and merging, or anything like that. I'm saying that you can be driving in four lanes of traffic, positioned in one of the inside lanes and it's one of those lanes that will disappear. No warning! Just all of the sudden... whoops... lane gone! Since I'm quite the risk taker, I've enhanced my Highway Roulette experience by driving the PT Loser, with its giant blind spot.

But this has to beat all! Since I need to switch my Florida license over to an Ohio, I picked up a copy of Ohio's Digest of Motor Vehicle Laws. I kid you not, this is in the book:

"When passing to the left, the law requires that a driver overtaking another vehicle do these things:

1. Sound the horn to warn the driver of the vehicle being overtaken that he/she is about to be passed."



Are they for real? Sound the horn?! Who made up that law? Little Timmy and his broken crayon? I don't know about you, but if someone honked their horn at me while passing, I'd shoot them a... stink eye. Yeah... a stink eye. Or at least chunk an orange at them.