RETURN TO TRADEWINDS MENU

Filler
by Robb Sherwin

I am a dangerous guy.

I hadn't been for a while. Actually, lately,  I haven't had anything remotely newsworthy to say. What do I do that is so exciting? Nothing. I am a man who enjoys his enemies. No, wait, that's the Kingpin. I am a man who has solved his problems. Yes. For in the past I have whined -- incessantly -- about my roommates or girlfriends or whatnot. But now I don't have any of those things. And consequently I have become quite boring.

So you get your kicks where you can. Before I threw out my last roommate I was racing home in order to make sure that he did not park his car in my spot. The Elder Priests of Zion say that loner bachelors develop some eccentricities but in my experiences that's simply not true. The last month that Sparky and myself lived in the same place was marked with some serious, other-worldly weird shit, the least of which was that any sort of "gentleman's" agreement as to who got to park in front of the townhouse went straight to hell. But I was the Alpha Male so I was going to, figuratively, mark my territory by taking the single parking space  allotted to us.

Interstate 25, from Longmont to Fort Collins, CO is marked with some of the cooler signs you're likely to see on the roads. One of them is "SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT." Finally! Finally, there was a stretch of highway that was built for people like me. When you spend 90 minutes of your day, seven and a half hours per week, and (presuming that I worked all 52 weeks in a year, which is a laughable fallacy that would otherwise give wooden boys like myself a nose of Jennifer-Grey-length quality) three hundred and ninety hours per year on the highway you tend to want the "experience" over with as quickly as possible. Since this is a Pinback website, It's now time for a short Q&A

Q: But Robb, why do you live so far away from where you work? Why not move closer?
A: Moving, in the biblical sense, is one of the most painful and unhappy periods of my life. I have not lived in the same place for more than eighteen months since I was a senior in high school. I wanted some consistency, dammit. So when Sparky left the townhouse I kept living there myself in order to not have to move.

Q: That's really fucking stupid of you.
A: Hey, you go live in Longmont. It's like living in Yucca Flats after the detonation of the bomb.

Q: That wasn't where the bomb was detonated, you stupid, ignorant fuck. That's where it was detonated for the first issue of The Hulk.
A: That's what I meant, you seeping, infected bastard. That's what I meant!

I could probably have seen myself living in Boulder, but still you're not paying attention-- that would require moving. Trying to get a U-Haul in Fort Collins is like trying to get a date with a girl you met in a bar who doesn't have a sexually transmitted disease in Fort Collins. It seems initially seems quite possible, but you will later find out that someone involved was lying. Thus, the 45 minute commute.

Did slower traffic keep right on the day in question? No! The gelded, hateful spawn in the left hand lane decided it was "OK" to go 70 in a 75. That offends me on a personal basis that I can not effectively communicate. I became possessed by an unshakable road rage. I started passing other drivers in the right lane and then getting back to my proper, left lane. Was I going fast? Oh God, yes. Was I "tailgating"? Well, not for long but technically, maybe. Was I "weaving from lane to lane"? Well, I didn't think so. But the cop who pulled me over did.

The first rule of Italian driving is "what's behind you is not important." I am not Italian, and do not drive an Italian car, but hey, I am able to accept Newton's Laws of Gravity without having bad teeth. There should be a stipulation to the Italian driving credo which states "Except For Fucking Cops." I hadn't been pulled over in a long time, you see. It was going on two years and three months. I hadn't previously gone more than eighteen months without getting pulled over since I was a senior in high school. There wasn't even a cool, "kick ass" driving song playing when he pulled me over. Something by Rage Against The Machine would be OK. Godzilla pure motherfucking filler! Yeah! Y'know? Or, hell, even Shimmer would be acceptable. I think it was something like Sweet Surrender or something. I wasn't paying attention. If it was going to be a pussified Sara McLachlan song, it could have at least been "Possession" which features commentary from genuine stalkers. We've all been there. Nevertheless!

The cop had a whole list of my infractions written up for me. Speeding. Tailgaiting. No use of turn signals (I found out later that the right one was out, so I was innocent of that charge.) And then, yeah, "excessive lane changes." What the fuck was that all about? If that is a crime, then I'm the Joseph Stalin of the Colorado State Highways. (I have washed away many of my brothers in my automobulatory purges and they all now reside in unmarked potter's graves.) I am the Ted Bundy of the Colorado State Highways. (I have preyed upon the attractive female law students of the freeway and run them off the road.) I have I am the Lewis Carroll of the Colorado State Highways (I was a pedaeophile and Jack the Ripper. Er, the car hadn't been invented yet, so this reference is a bit of a stretch.)  It seemed to me I was getting the double-whammy. You can either communicate your displeasure with the driver ahead of you by nigh riding their bumper, or you can pass them on the right. I think I had the latter down pretty well.

Robb's Guide To Passing A Clueless Fuckstick On I-25
1. Maintain a generous distance before your victim, but do, ever-so-slowly, creep up on them
2. Floor it, bitches!
3. Tailgate the LIVING FUCK out of their rustheap of a Camry or POS Caravan
4. Honk. Honk your horn and just don't stop. Make it sound like one of those crazy jazz musicians who play a single, extended note to show off while the rest of the band goes to the back bar and drops acid
5. Signal to the right while moving to the right
6. Accelerate pass the victim and make eye contact briefly.  
7. Complete the pass and -- this is important -- shake your head from side to side. As if to say, "I can't believe anyone would go 80 in a 75 when I am trying to do 90. Asshole."

The thing was, I also didn't have my car registered in Colorado, so the cop impounded my beloved Neon. "The Red Scare," as I affectionately call it. Taken away from me. Shig!

The cop left me stranded by the side of the highway in Loveland. No, wait. He asked me if I wanted to be dropped off at a restaurant or a 7-11 in order to call somebody to pick me up. I gave  what I thought was an effective pause, like Dave Foley in that one "Chicken Lady" sketch and said "the restaurant." So that's where I was stranded. I called up one of my buds. One of my former roommates. A guy I lived with in the Hacienda, for Chrissake, so that he would pick me up.

He passed the buck to his roommate. Jackass. Don't think that's not going down in my personal revenger file.

Eventually I got home. I was ticketed for "Reckless Driving" and "No Registration." Damnation.

There remains very little to tell. I had the hearing late last week. Did you know that you can receive a jail term for reckless driving? I didn't. Did you know that even if you plea-bargain down to "careless driving" you can still get a jail term and then have the insult of a pussified version of crime slung around your neck like a rotting albatross? I didn't. Jail. Me! A guy who, except for some rampant, consistent computer and music piracy, some Sandbox.com password haX0ring, some copyright infringement, some underage alcoholic consumption, some  University-level academic fraud and some statutory "rape," I have been a model American citizen. Thomas Jefferson owned a cathedral of slaves and no-one was throwing him into any fucking prisons. Jail! For simply wanting to get home before my buttmunch roommate did so I could get my parking spot. It hardly seems worth it!

...That all went through my head the instant the judge uttered the word "jail" or "prison" or "federally regulated anal-based exploratory institution." He then muttered something about probation. I got six months of it, unsupervised, whatever that means.  I wasn't asking a whole lot of questions at that point. I think it means that I can't urinate on the side of a building until after Easter. I'd make some joke about how the people who wash the back alleys of Fort Collins near the bars are breathing a side of relief, but let's be honest, no-one washes the urine of the side of the buildings in the seedier districts "downtown." At any rate, don't mess with me, pig fuckers, because at any moment they could be dragging me off to jail and if they do -- I'm coming back for you!

As I said, I'm a dangerous guy.