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Driving Pet Peeves

I've touched on some of these things before, but thought it was about time to make one ultimate list of the things that bother me most on the roads. Anything you want to add, I'm always looking to expand my list.

Your kid was student of the month at some elementary school? Have him teach you what the color green means at a light, then. I’m sick of waiting 10 seconds for you to look up from your glove compartment or DVD player on your sunvisor.

You want an oil change, but the mechanic says you need 10 other things done.

Cops with stupid questions. Do I know how fast I was going? No, officer…the speedometer stops at 165 mph.

So, you’re all for “coexisting” eh? Well, how about letting me merge onto the freeway then?! And why are you driving in the right lane if you aren’t exiting?

An old car plastered with stickers about saving animals, saving the planet, global warming…and there’s thick smog exhaust coming from the back of their jalopy.

The Jesus fish. The Darwin fish. Enough with the fish.

Officers telling you every little thing with your car is illegal. No front license plate, big deal. Tinted windows…how will I pick my nose in privacy? Dice dangling from my rear-view mirror? Cops really come close to making me want to tell them to go out and catch real criminals.

Mechanics telling you, after you drop $1,800 “That weird sound is normal.” If you turned around and took your car to another mechanic, they’d say that sound means you need to spend $2,000 for them to fix.

Cigarettes flying out the window towards you like a ninja star. Now, I don’t think they’ll make my car blow up or anything, but in SD, fires have started this way. And it’s still littering. Take the rocks out of your head and the change out of your ash tray, and use that! If you don’t like stinking up your car, then stop smoking!

Cell phone drivers (myself excluded). Because of your bad driving habits, you’ve created a law that now doesn’t let me do it.

Senior citizens on the road. They drive like there are tennis balls attached to the car wheels, too.

Young people on the road. Too many reasons to list.

Left lane is for passing. If you aren’t passing anyone, time to move over.

Parking lots – if you drive an SUV the size of a Sherman tank and can’t fit it between the lines, go park on the street. If that means you walk an extra 100 yards, so be it.

Loud music. We don’t need to hear your bass and woofers from three blocks away. And why is it only the people listening to crappy music blast it? (this means you, Kanye and Jay-Z fans)

Stickers of your family. The world doesn’t care that you have two kids, two dogs, a cat, and a wife that wears bell bottoms. (On a side note: anyone ever notice how weird that lyric is in Crosby, Stills, & Nash’s song “Our House”? They sing: Our house, is a very, very, very fine house/with two cats in the yard…

Does that mean he has the cats buried there, like it’s some sort of pet cemetery…Okay, back to “pet” peeves of driving, not song lyrics...

And back to people with goofy stickers. We don’t care that you wear Oakleys or Nikes, or are a Cowboys fan. And we don’t want to read something you think is funny, if it’s more than three words long. Actually, let’s just put anyone with bumper stickers on this list.

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Two poems by Marvin Bell

“To Dorothy” and “The Self and the Mulberry”

I've touched on some of these things before, but thought it was about time to make one ultimate list of the things that bother me most on the roads. Anything you want to add, I'm always looking to expand my list.

Your kid was student of the month at some elementary school? Have him teach you what the color green means at a light, then. I’m sick of waiting 10 seconds for you to look up from your glove compartment or DVD player on your sunvisor.

You want an oil change, but the mechanic says you need 10 other things done.

Cops with stupid questions. Do I know how fast I was going? No, officer…the speedometer stops at 165 mph.

So, you’re all for “coexisting” eh? Well, how about letting me merge onto the freeway then?! And why are you driving in the right lane if you aren’t exiting?

An old car plastered with stickers about saving animals, saving the planet, global warming…and there’s thick smog exhaust coming from the back of their jalopy.

The Jesus fish. The Darwin fish. Enough with the fish.

Officers telling you every little thing with your car is illegal. No front license plate, big deal. Tinted windows…how will I pick my nose in privacy? Dice dangling from my rear-view mirror? Cops really come close to making me want to tell them to go out and catch real criminals.

Mechanics telling you, after you drop $1,800 “That weird sound is normal.” If you turned around and took your car to another mechanic, they’d say that sound means you need to spend $2,000 for them to fix.

Cigarettes flying out the window towards you like a ninja star. Now, I don’t think they’ll make my car blow up or anything, but in SD, fires have started this way. And it’s still littering. Take the rocks out of your head and the change out of your ash tray, and use that! If you don’t like stinking up your car, then stop smoking!

Cell phone drivers (myself excluded). Because of your bad driving habits, you’ve created a law that now doesn’t let me do it.

Senior citizens on the road. They drive like there are tennis balls attached to the car wheels, too.

Young people on the road. Too many reasons to list.

Left lane is for passing. If you aren’t passing anyone, time to move over.

Parking lots – if you drive an SUV the size of a Sherman tank and can’t fit it between the lines, go park on the street. If that means you walk an extra 100 yards, so be it.

Loud music. We don’t need to hear your bass and woofers from three blocks away. And why is it only the people listening to crappy music blast it? (this means you, Kanye and Jay-Z fans)

Stickers of your family. The world doesn’t care that you have two kids, two dogs, a cat, and a wife that wears bell bottoms. (On a side note: anyone ever notice how weird that lyric is in Crosby, Stills, & Nash’s song “Our House”? They sing: Our house, is a very, very, very fine house/with two cats in the yard…

Does that mean he has the cats buried there, like it’s some sort of pet cemetery…Okay, back to “pet” peeves of driving, not song lyrics...

And back to people with goofy stickers. We don’t care that you wear Oakleys or Nikes, or are a Cowboys fan. And we don’t want to read something you think is funny, if it’s more than three words long. Actually, let’s just put anyone with bumper stickers on this list.

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