An Anecdotal Life

Old People and Driving

         “Was that you?”

         “Was what me?”

         My grandmother shot me a disapproving look, then wordlessly rolled down the window. We were making the torturously long trek from Alabama to Texas to see my brother graduate from Air Force boot camp when the acrid stench hit.

         “It wasn't me.”

         “Hmmm.” She rolled the window back up before resuming her mental checklist of every possible driving mistake I might be making. I could tell by the pinched, concentrated look on her face. Why she even let me drive her truck in the first place if she was going to be that antsy about it, I will never know.

         For the most part, the trip was pleasant. We both enjoyed the same music, we both had books to read when it was our turn to be the passenger, and the truck was big enough that if we wanted, we could easily lay back and take a nap. Grandma had just woken up from hers, in fact—probably due in great part to the powerful reek we’d just encountered.

         “For god’s sake,” I grumbled under my breath, looking away from my restless ancestor to the vehicle in my rearview mirror. It took very large cojones to ride that close on an F-250’s rear bumper, but the guy behind me was giving it his all.

         He’d been doing it off and on for about five miles, and while I would have liked to have moved out of his way, that wasn’t possible. The steady stream of Macks and Freightliners on my right prevented any such allowances. I had already mentally told him to hold his horses, but he wasn’t inclined to listen. Or perhaps he just wasn’t psychic. Probably the latter.

         “What? What’s going on?” Grandma turned completely around in her seat to stare through the back window. “How long has he been doing that?!”

         “A while,” I said, peering up ahead for any break in the line of trucks that might let me merge. Nothing.

         “Hit your brakes!”

         “Grandma, if I do, he’ll be in the bed. I’m not hitting the brakes.” I shot her a look. She gave it back.

         “Maybe, but it’ll be him paying us, so hit the brakes!”

         “I’m not hitting the brakes. He’ll just have to be patient.” This was not an easy statement for someone whose nickname is “Big Impatient Grandma Irene” to take.

         “Well, I would.” That settled that, I was sure. She turned back around and crossed her arms, her mind obviously still on the vehicle behind us. “How far to the basin?”

         The basin she spoke of was the Atchafalaya Basin, a gigantic river and wetlands area spanned by an 18-mile-long elevated bridge, which we would shortly be crossing. It is a length of road the Louisiana State Troopers find quite lovely; it is, as far as I can tell, their favorite watering hole.

         “About a minute,” I guessed, glancing at a passing sign. “Why?”

         “He’ll get his,” she cackled, peering stealthily back over her shoulder at our bumper buddy. I rolled my eyes and kept driving.

         Sure enough, about a minute later, we arrived at the bridge. The speed limit is a strict 60 miles-per-hour, no questions, no exceptions. Go any faster and a large black helicopter will descend upon your vehicle and, without compunction, lift it directly off the freeway and deposit it into the basin where you will sink to your demise, an audience of delighted law enforcement officers waving you on to a better place.

         I carefully checked my speed to match the limit, hit the cruise control, and watched the man’s face behind me turn an alarming shade of eggplant. His grill must have been actually sparking my bumper, as close as he looked in the rearview mirror. Then again, it was probably worse than I thought; objects are closer than they appear, after all.

         Of course, that was the exact time that the trucks chose to create a space into which I could slip my grandmother’s monster truck. I merged as slowly as possible, just to torture my tailgater, taking great pleasure in watching myriad of expressions cross his face. Finally, I was all the way over. He shot past, apparently stomping the gas flat to the floorboards, and zoomed away into the distance. I rolled my eyes, muttered something about men, and promptly forgot all about him.

         For about forty-five seconds.

         There he was, purple face and all, getting a stern talking to by one of Louisiana’s finest on the side of the road. I arched a brow and smiled at the irony, but Grandma was much more overt in her joy.

         “HA! You bastard!” She pressed her nose up against the window, giving the man a violent sort of grin and waved cheerfully. “Serves you right! I hope you go to prison!"

         There was nothing quite like a drive in the country with my sweet little old grandmother.