Noodles

In high school I had a girl friend who drove a Chevrolet Corvair, one of  those little square cars. Her favorite trick when driving, was to steer with her knees. It came in very handy while lighting cigarettes, eating White Castle hamburgers, and when digging through her purse. I was impressed, and to this day I occasionally steer with my knees, just like she taught me.

Yesterday Mark and I were on our way to Home Depot to be disappointed again, when we got behind another one of those damned Honda cars. It was moving so slowly that I managed to pass it and get in front of it at a stop light. As we went past the driver's side of the Honda, Mark looked out the window and saw a Chinese lady in the driver's seat eating a bowl of noodles. She was eating a goddamned bowl of noodles with both hands while driving! I thought South Florida drivers were insane. Something has happened in Chicago since I moved away in 1989. People have lost their minds. I do not remember Chicago drivers being so insane when I lived here before. Anyway, here is a list of things I don't want to see people doing while driving.

• Number one, Do not eat a bowl of noodles. Do not try to eat you dinner, lunch, or your breakfast while driving. Unless it fits in one hand, doesn't drip, and can be finished in one or two bites, don't do it.
• Number two, Put the goddamned phone down. The call is not that important, if it was you would have already taken care of it. I constantly see idiots on the phone talking, texting, and looking at the GPS map while driving, even though that is totally illegal in Illinois. At least every third car I pass has the phone out and is not paying any attention to the crazy man in the white Ford honking his horn and cursing at them.
• Number three, Your car is not just a room in your house. Mark and I passed a car yesterday where the man driving it was on the phone, the woman in the passenger seat was doing her makeup in the mirror, and the kids in the back seat were both on cell phones. Why the fuck do kids need cell phones? I lived through the nineteen fifties and sixties without a cell phone. Hell, I didn't even know how to use a coin pay phone until I was in high school and I turned out just fine.
• Number four, Don't live in your car. I have got behind quite a few cars that are stacked to the roof with crap. Crap across the rear window, crap in the passenger seat all the way up to the window line, and crap everywhere filling the car with only a small area for the driver to sit.
• And finally, just get the hell out of my way. I thought the tourists in Florida were slow. In Chicago everybody is slow. It is excruciating getting behind one of those assholes who think the speed limit means something. It does not. Just ask the morons who speed down my street every day.