Dumb and Dumber

While driving, you see some pretty stupid behavior.

Two cases in point, one dumb, and one even dumber.

In the first case, someone is attempting to merge onto the interstate. There are two vehicles already in the right lane, and a huge space between those two and the car further behind. At least 100 yards of space. Plenty of room to get in, and to spare. The person merging absolutely had to speed up to try to get between those two cars, and the second one had to quickly pull into the left lane to keep from being hit.

Why? What in the world would have been wrong with merging behind both? After all, he was behind both when he got into the merge lane anyway. Are you really going to get there that much faster because you are ahead of that one car?

Dumber still was the escalating road rage between two semi trucks pulling oversize loads through a construction zone.

Yes, really.

Call them blue truck and yellow truck.

When i got on the interstate, yellow truck was in front, blue truck was right on his tail, staying as close as possible so as not to have to let anyone in.

It was the highest traffic time of the day on that stretch of the interstate, which is undergoing widening there. There is no shoulder at all, and it is a dangerous stretch. The traffic was at an almost stop, and the on ramp merge lane was stopped. Most vehicles were letting one car from the merge lane on in front, but blue truck was absolutely refusing.

Yes, i thought it odd, that he should hug the rear of the truck in front so closely, especially since most truckers do let a vehicle or two in at that stretch. At first glance, though, i dismissed it as the driver of blue truck just being nasty.

By the time he refused to allow the second merge at the next on ramp, i was wondering what was going on.

When the construction zone ended just over two miles later, at the first opportunity blue truck, which had ridden the whole way tailgating yellow truck, pulled out, whipping that load all over the place, and sped up to pass.

They then passed and re-passed each other, each trying to get ahead, each barely staying within his own lane, until i was afraid of what would happen next.

Thankfully blue truck finally exited.

It left me wondering if those two nitwits realized what they could have done, or even cared.

If you can't control your temper when behind the wheel, you don't belong behind the wheel. Especially if you are driving something that big at interstate speed.


Today is:

American Beer Day

Big Bang Day -- London

Cernova Tragedy Day -- Slovakia

Cranky Co-Worker's Day

Feast of Osiris in Abydos -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar

Good Bear Day -- on Theodore Roosevelt's birthday, celebrating the stuffed toy created in his honor

Great Pumpkin Carve -- Chadds Ford Historical Society, Chadds Ford, PA, US (through the 29th)

Independence Day -- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Turkmenistan

National Potato Day

Navy Day -- US

St. Frumentius' Day (Patron of Ethiopia)

Sylvia Plath Day

Three-Z Day -- Democratic Republic of the Congo

Tunch Puddling -- Fairy Calendar (a contest of throwing twigs in a pond -- awards are for artistically thrown twigs and throwing style, among other things)

World Day for Audiovisual Heritage -- International


Birthdays Today:

Jayne Kennedy, 1951
Carrie Snodgrass, 1946
John Cleese, 1939
Ruby Dee, 1924
Roy Lichtenstein, 1923
Bette Babray, 1920
Dylan Thomas, 1914
Emily Post, 1872
Theodore Roosevelt, 1858
Niccolo Paganini, 1782
Captain James Cook, 1728
Erasmus, 1466


Today in History:

Constantine the Great is said to have received his Vision of the Cross, 312
Founding of the city of Amsterdam, 1275
Founding of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1682
US Navy forms, 1775
Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated, 1838
R.H. Macy & Co. opens its first store, on 6th Ave. in NYC, 1858
Boss Tweed is arrested, 1871
The first underground New York City Subway line opens, 1904
The first published reference to "jazz" appears, in Variety, 1916
Chuhei Numbu of Japan sets the long jump record at 26' 2 1/2", 1931
"You Bet Your Life," with Groucho Marx, premiers on ABC radio, 1947*
Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force, 1954
Mauritania and Mongolia join the United Nations, 1961
The British government suddenly deregulates financial markets, leading to a total restructuring of the way in which they operate in the country, in an event now referred to as the Big Bang, 1986
The U.S. prison population tops 1 million for the first time in American history, 1994
Gliese 229B is the first Substellar Mass Object to be unquestionably identified, 1994
Stock markets around the world crash because of fears of a global economic meltdown, 1997
The Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time in 86 years, 2004
The SSETI Express micro-satellite is successfully launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, 2005


*(Ultimate result of this a few years later is, of course, the funniest line ever on tv, when a man with 8 kids admitted to Mr. Marx that he did indeed love his wife, and Groucho countered with, "I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth sometimes!")