Good / Bad
Well, it’s free and clear for my car transport from Michigan to Florida. The ol’ Formy was picked up this morning right on schedule. The truck driver is actually the owner of the regional carrier selected by National Auto Transport (the name of the carrier is Champion Transport LLC), and his truck is only a three-car flatbed—not one of those big 8- or 10-car rigs. That’s good, because it makes it much easier for the truck to get in and out of places that it otherwise wouldn’t be able to.
My dad saw the car off on its journey, and he says that the truck driver couldn’t have been a nicer guy. Fantastic news. Plus, it turns out my Formula is sharing the flatbed with a car belonging to none other than former Detroit Pistons basketball coach Chuck Daly. Wacky, eh?
Anyway, I’m still on track to see the car on Monday sometime. The driver told me it’d be Monday morning when I talked to him yesterday evening, but the time of day really doesn’t matter too much. Actually, it doesn’t even matter if he’s a day late. The condition of the car upon its arrival is more important to me, and from the sound of it, I don’t have to worry about the truck driver causing any harm to it.
Now for the ”/ Bad” half of today’s update. Just when I thought it was gonna be smooth sailing, and that I could sleep again…well, I had one hell of a weird dream last night, and it seemed to partially fortell an incident that happened to me this morning. Since I can actually remember almost all of this dream, I might as well document its oddness. Hey, this is the Oddball Update, after all.
So last night I dreamt I was friends with some guy who owned an absolutely fantastic KITT conversion. I mean, this thing was awesome. Not only was it outfitted with all the conversion parts, but it had tons of cool gadgets in it…LCD monitors, video game systems, computers, all the kind of stuff you usually see at those import stereo competitions. Apparently he’d won all kinds of trophies and yada yada, like this car was a star on the international circuit or some crap.
Anyway, in my dream, this guy and I went down to Los Angeles for some kind of sightseeing trip. Whereupon I promptly stole the guy’s KITT car. Is that insane or what? Furthermore, after stealing it, I hid it in a garage somewhere and pretended like nothing had happened! While the police searched all over the place for the car, I began to get really nervous, like eventually they were gonna find out that I stole it. And how the hell could I enjoy the car in the meantime? It was too unique—if I so much as took it out of the garage, it would be obvious who stole it!
So with the police unwittingly after me, I got in my wife’s Pontiac Vibe, which happened to be out in SoCal for some ridiculous reason, and went on this mission to…escape. Just disappear, leave the stolen car behind and start a new life or something crazy like that. I remember driving through all this mud, and suddenly it was like I was in the Ozarks on a rainy day in March—there were trees, grass, moss and mud all OVER the place. Then the Vibe slammed into a huge pothole and one of the wiper arms broke off. For some reason this was like the end of the world to me. I knew I’d be caught now! They’d throw me in the slammer (“You remember that room you were in?”) for stealing KITT and that’d be the end of it…
Well, right about then I woke up.
Now I bet you’re wondering what event this dream could possibly have foretold. Did I steal a car this morning or something? No…but I ended up with the police after me. To make a long story short I ended up getting my first traffic citation on the way to work this morning. With a car like mine, you’d expect it would be for speeding, right? Nope. Not making a complete stop? Nope. Reckless driving? No! So what was the violation then?
Entering a left turn lane too early by driving onto a striped area.
There was a humongous police stakeout on the corner of the intersection of two far-too-small roads this morning. As usual, since each of these roads is sadly only one lane in each direction, traffic had backed up for a mile. I sat through it for a while, until the center lane widened, and then, signaling, I cruised slowly up the middle to the light, watching for people who might dart out in front of me. A lot of people do this. It even helps clear the through-lane for people who are not turning left, and therefore reduces the traffic backup. But of course, despite the rationalizations, I realize that it is still illegal.
Not to mention dangerous. Apparently a lot of people have recently been involved in accidents while doing this, so the cops staked out that intersection and were pulling people over like crazy. In just the span of time that I was stopped alongside the road, there were four other cars pulled over in front of and behind me for the same violation. And speaking of the violation, they want to put THREE POINTS on my license for this. Okay, I messed up. But THREE POINTS? I can’t believe how retarded that is. I suppose you get two points for a broken taillight?
Fortunately, the state of Florida allows you to attend “traffic school” on the Internet—basically it involves four timed hours of studying material and then taking a final exam—so that no points are assessed against your record, and your fine is reduced (albeit by a measley 15%, which in my case amounts to less than the price of the online course!). This is obviously what I plan to do, because it is definitely the best option I have available to me. But it just pisses me off to no end. Although honestly, I must admit, that’s the last time I will ever cross into the left turn lane early. That simple action alone, however, given the fact that our roads are woefully too small for the amount of people on them, will cost me an extra 5-10 minutes every morning. It’s yet another sad and ridiculous commentary on the state of transportation engineering in Florida—ranking right up there with the pointless roundabouts, the damn lights that no one has ever even bothered to synchronize, and the left turn arrows and right turn arrows that direct traffic right into each others’ path.
Of course, the situation at work today has been insane, for reasons I’m much too fatigued to bother going into right now. It’s 1:30 and I haven’t eaten lunch yet, but for some reason, I’m not even hungry anyway.
Can we just get this fucking week over with?
Categorized as Randomness