No Headlights

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I want someone to design a way for you to tell the person behind you that her headlights aren't on. I almost ran into a snowbank yesterday, gesturing frantically to the woman in a tiny VW bug who was passing me on the right, to get her to see that she needed to turn on her lights. Couldn't there be a switch for your back window that you could throw on, and it would just read, It's getting dark. Turn on your headlights?

I guess it's more symptomatic of my worry  and control issues--wanting to make sure everyone is okay and following the rules. I can't imagine what it would be like if I were in law enforcement. I'd be constantly irritated by people breaking the law and then lying about it (this is what happens on Cops all the time. The guilty parties even know they've been filmed, and they still deny whatever it is that was also just caught on camera. And then, when the cop pulls the crack pipe out from behind the guy's ear, he'll go, "Where did that come from? That's not mine! My friend asked me to hold it for him!").

But though driving has gotten easier, I never like it. It's never relaxing to be on Route 1. There's always some dick in a BMW who wants to speed by and not wait his turn (it's always a guy in these scenarios, at least in my mind) or some other jerk who's tail-gaiting. I get irritated just from seeing tail-gating. It's not even happening to me and I'm yelling and gripping the steering wheel. The other day, I swear to God, I hit the fourth red light in a row on Scudder's Mill Road and I screamed. At the top of my lungs. No one else was in the car, of course, but still--is that how I want to be acting prior to 8 a.m. on any given day?

Today I took the back way; the windy road up Clarksville Road, but it's all a set up, because you still end up on Route 1, if only for a while. You can't escape it. It's like an unending nightmare.

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