So yesterday I rode home from Scout's house around 6. It was snowing a little for a good part of the way, maybe 30 miles of the trip. Still, everything was fine and dandy...until I got to Altoona. They've been doing serious "ro-wad" work on I-99 (our main interstate artery) here for the last three years. I'm not sure what they're doing, but it requires that one lane be closed for dozens of miles and must be performed by hundreds of grumpy old men in dirty clothes and at least one woman who I immediately mistook for a walrus holding a stop sign on a stick. I was pretty impressed until I learned that she was, in reality, a cleverly disguised human.
Dotting the "highway" are several make-shift exit and entrance ramps composed of construction barrels and mammoth sized stop signs. So I'm putting along the bumpy, coarsely grated one lane road at about 40 or so when I see a busted, rusty Dodge Ram pull up to the super-sized stop sign to enter the highway about a mile ahead. And he's packing something huge and white in the bed. I slow down...he waits...I slow down a little more because I'm pretty sure I know what's coming...he waits. I get about, oh...500 feet from him and he steps on the gas and pulls out. At this point I notice that the huge mass in the back of the truck is a new queen sized mattress and box spring. I slow down, ten car lengths. He slows down. I slow down, twenty car lengths. He slows down. We were going about 35 when the highway opened back up to two lanes. He accelerates to (roughly) warp 5.2 and the mattress achieves liftoff. It bounced once, I think, before I passed next to/underneath it and immediately pulled over. I whipped off my helmet, ran across the highway and tugged his new bed off the side. When he got there he said- "Geez I'm glad we didn't 'get' ya, I was watching." I'm not sure what he meant by that- and I didn't ask. After helping load it up, and showing him the correct way to mount/apply his ratchet straps- I was back on my way.
About two miles from my house I have to cut across a grocery store parking lot. I'm not sure why, but the little joint has parking for 72,000 cars. There is one side of a split four lane passing in one way on either side of the store. It's a bit busy, so people tend to "dart" out of the lot when they get a chance. So I've got about three cars in front of me as we approach the left into the lot. I note five or six cars in line to get out. All but myself and the car in front of me changed lanes, and about four cars pour out of the lot- leaving Darla (names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved) in her brand new navy blue GMC/Ford/Chrysler Abrams tank for soccer moms. The car infront of me turns into the lot, and I proceed- about 50 feet behind. But Darla has had enough waiting and just pulls right on out. She notices me about, I don't know, roughly the time that my rear tire screeched on the damp pavement and kicked a foot or so out from underneath me. By the time I'm righted and stopped- she's about half a foot from my left side, stopped across the lane and staring...I honk, she stares, I give the international sign of adoration, she stares. We're at an angle, so I have nowhere to proceed forward but a grass bank. So I kicked her passenger side door about as hard as I could from the sitting position. At which point she immediately sped off.
God I freak'in hate Altoids.
Dotting the "highway" are several make-shift exit and entrance ramps composed of construction barrels and mammoth sized stop signs. So I'm putting along the bumpy, coarsely grated one lane road at about 40 or so when I see a busted, rusty Dodge Ram pull up to the super-sized stop sign to enter the highway about a mile ahead. And he's packing something huge and white in the bed. I slow down...he waits...I slow down a little more because I'm pretty sure I know what's coming...he waits. I get about, oh...500 feet from him and he steps on the gas and pulls out. At this point I notice that the huge mass in the back of the truck is a new queen sized mattress and box spring. I slow down, ten car lengths. He slows down. I slow down, twenty car lengths. He slows down. We were going about 35 when the highway opened back up to two lanes. He accelerates to (roughly) warp 5.2 and the mattress achieves liftoff. It bounced once, I think, before I passed next to/underneath it and immediately pulled over. I whipped off my helmet, ran across the highway and tugged his new bed off the side. When he got there he said- "Geez I'm glad we didn't 'get' ya, I was watching." I'm not sure what he meant by that- and I didn't ask. After helping load it up, and showing him the correct way to mount/apply his ratchet straps- I was back on my way.
About two miles from my house I have to cut across a grocery store parking lot. I'm not sure why, but the little joint has parking for 72,000 cars. There is one side of a split four lane passing in one way on either side of the store. It's a bit busy, so people tend to "dart" out of the lot when they get a chance. So I've got about three cars in front of me as we approach the left into the lot. I note five or six cars in line to get out. All but myself and the car in front of me changed lanes, and about four cars pour out of the lot- leaving Darla (names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved) in her brand new navy blue GMC/Ford/Chrysler Abrams tank for soccer moms. The car infront of me turns into the lot, and I proceed- about 50 feet behind. But Darla has had enough waiting and just pulls right on out. She notices me about, I don't know, roughly the time that my rear tire screeched on the damp pavement and kicked a foot or so out from underneath me. By the time I'm righted and stopped- she's about half a foot from my left side, stopped across the lane and staring...I honk, she stares, I give the international sign of adoration, she stares. We're at an angle, so I have nowhere to proceed forward but a grass bank. So I kicked her passenger side door about as hard as I could from the sitting position. At which point she immediately sped off.
God I freak'in hate Altoids.
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