I was stuck in slow-moving traffic the other day. Usually I’d put on some soothing music or sports radio station in order to simply wait it out, but I found a new way to pass the time.
Moving through traffic I noticed a large black Chrysler truck pull up beside me. (I believe a truck of that size would have to be black. I don’t remember ever seeing a light blue Chrysler truck.) Even though I was driving a pickup that was supposed to be high off the ground, I still felt as though I were in a subcompact next to the monster truck beside me.
Inside was a man who also made me feel very small. He had his forearm leaning outside the window – or at least I think it was his forearm. His arm looked as though it was twice the size of my thigh. Peeking into the cab of his truck, I also noticed his head was twice the size of mine.
He had a long black beard and was smoking what looked like a small tree. He was obviously annoyed with being held up and looked as though he was trying to find a poor unfortunate to torture in order to pass the time away. I looked straight ahead and hunched over hoping not to be his unfortunate of the day.
I then turned off my CD player and started to observe other cars that surrounded their drivers and thus me. To my surprise, I had discovered another way of passing the time when time was stolen by a midwinter traffic jam.
Slowly driving besides me was a bright silver Cadillac with the appearance of being some sort of military vehicle. It was square in shape with its distinctive Cadillac emblem in the center of both the hood and trunk of the car. I imagined all the cars on the road pulling off to the side of the road in order to allow the king Cadillac to pass.
On a normal day this traffic would have driven me nuts, but because of my newfound game I was actually enjoying this time.
The next vehicle that passed by me was a silver Ford F-150 truck. It had all the extras on it and had a plastic black bed liner covering all of the back.
Inside was a middle-aged balding man who held on to the steering wheel with what looked like one finger. His windows were opened, and I think he was listening to some sort of jazz or blues. He wore a baseball cap that had an emblem on it I had never seen before.
I always got a kick out of watching TV shows about how a person’s pet starts to look like its owner. For a half-hour or so I was enjoying how a person’s car resembled what the person was supposed to be or at least wanted to be. It was a fun game until my mind’s eye decided to play a game with me.
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