SIX

I was driving down the highway the other day and as the 405 is wont to do, it suddenly slowed down. No surprise, but it seemed a little odd to me that the carpool lane and the fast lane on the left sped by while the rest of the lanes seemingly crawled along. So, being the California driver that I am, I promptly drove into the passing lane and when I got to the front of the crawl, saw the reason for the slowdown.

What I saw was one old red beat up jalopy driving as if drunk on the right part of the highway.Using the word 'part' was the polite way to put it, because the driver who was supposedly in control and supposed to be in one lane took a good part of the highway for weaving in and out of lanes. From my vantage point in the front, I could see that this particular vehicle had busted both tires on the left drivers' side and was actually DRIVING ON THE METAL on the driver's side. So we watched as the car lurched back and forth on the road and hoped it wouldn't careen toward us. I waited with baited breath, seeing an exit coming up and thought to myself, ok, here's a good place to exit. Nope. Car just kept on driving. Er, no not driving. Lurching. Dragging itself as fast as it could (about 30 mph?).

WTF!

Being the responsible driver that I am, I had my kid in the back of the car call CHPS (chips is short for the California Highway Patrol) and relate the tale of the wayward driver to them. Finally, thinking it would be better to distance myself from the driver before a real accident occurred with me being part of it, I decided to make a mad dash out of the vicinity and drove away.

The cops would call me the next day for my story and in the conversation that ensued it slipped out that that particular driver (who was a woman, couldn't tell thru the dirty driver side window) was a hit and run driver, thus the reason why she decided to continue to drive past the highway exit.

For some reason, thinking about the car incident made me think about the dead rat in my past life. This was a rat I saw underneath the TV in the living room of my parent's apartment when I was about 2 years old. It was already dead in the trap. I only got a glimpse of it, but it made me realize there were other critters than people running around in the building. They didn't call it the projects for nothing. But being 2, I didn't know at the time my folks were living in the projects. Now I know what that word means and I'm just grateful my parents moved out of there. The big obvious: I probably would've grown up differently had we stayed. If I grew up in the projects, maybe I would've been like that crazy driver we went past on the 405.