Anti-Speed

Coming home from the grocery store the other day, I felt like I was in a movie that was the opposite of Speed. If you saw that movie, you know that the driver of the bus could not exceed some particular speed or it would trigger a bomb to explode the bus. Well, the driver of the car in front of me on this day must have been convinced that something terrible would happen if he drove too fast. Anytime he approached 20 mph -- I am not exaggerating -- the brake lights would go on and the car would slow down. In turn, all 15 of us following him would slow down. I was about 5th in this line, but one by one the other drivers in front of me bailed out until I was directly behind the Extremely Slow Driver.

At first I thought maybe the driver was looking for a street, and I was willing to cut him a little slack. But when he kept braking with no side streets in sight, the slack I was willing to cut him tightened until it disappeared. He did everything in slow motion. He turned in slow motion. Went around curves in slow motion. Went through green lights in slow motion. Every time we came to a place where he could turn off, my whole body turned in that direction in an effort to somehow subliminally send him that way. But of course he kept going on the route I was following.

Finally, excruciatingly, we approached my street. If this car goes down my street, I thought, I will pretend I live somewhere else and go home later. Even if it is tomorrow.

My whoop of joy as the car passed my road without turning onto it was, I'm sure, heard in the next county. And it probably got there a lot faster than the Extremely Slow Driver did.