Recalculating

“Recalculating”

Keith and Joe are retired administrators from the California public school system.  Keith invited Joe and me to Washington, D.C.  Keith bought tickets for us to see “Wicked”, a spin-off of the Wizard of Oz.  Wicked was playing at the Kennedy Center downtown.  After the play we hurried to the car hoping that the parking garage wouldn’t be a nightmare.  Surprisingly, we got out of the garage quickly with the exception of an asshole that nearly ran us over. 

Earlier that day Keith shared his anxiety about driving to the Kennedy Center, because he had never been there before.  Keith has an obsessive-compulsive disorder and he gets himself all worked-up over nothing, such as driving to the Kennedy Center in his hometown.  During the drive home Keith turned into a maniac.  He had an intense and unusual expression on his face, a look I have never seen in all my years.  The Garmin GPS system was telling him to make turns and he would either turn too soon or not soon enough.  Which frustrated him tremendously.  Every time he would miss a turn, Garmin would say “Recalculating” and give him new directions.  I even think the Garmin system was afraid of Keith’s driving.  He had both hands on the steering wheel, staring into outer space and weaving all over the road.  Then he turned and sped down a very tight side street with cars parked on both sides, barely missing them speeding through twists and turns.  I believe we brushed a few of those cars, but of course it was collateral damage. Then he turned too wide onto the main road and went up on the median, darted off the median and put the pedal to the medal.  At this point my heart was in my throat, I was ghost white with bulging eyes, sweating bullets.  This “son of a *****” was out of his mind.  I yelled at Keith and told him to get himself under control or park the car right now.  It was almost time to physically remove Keith from the car and let Garmin drive us home.

I turned around to look at Joe in the backseat and he had a peculiar look on his face, something that indicated he had been here before.  Then I realized I had been hoodwinked.  Joe knew that Keith was a scary driver and he purposely did not tell me.  He knew that I would not have ridden with Keith anywhere. I should have had a clue when Keith’s girlfriend held a book up to her face while he was driving home from the airport.  She got in the car and put on her seatbelt and covered her face with a book. I thought she was being a bit dramatic. In hindsight, she wasn’t overreacting at all. 

Once Keith got himself under control, we all started making jokes and it was crap your pants funny.  I told Keith he was much more entertaining than the Wicked production.  I said I would write the script for a new musical, titled “Recalculating”: A musical about a psychotic driver on his way home from the Kennedy Center with two passengers.