Dear Sporty Red Car in Front of Me,

Do you understand that you’re on the freeway?  Do you wonder why it’s been so long since you saw a traffic light or stop sign?  If you do realize that you’re on the freeway, why are you driving 40 miles per hour?  Seriously, why would you do that?  What possible reason could you have?  Fifty miles per hour is one thing–sure, it’s annoying, but at least it’s in the neighborhood of what other freeway drivers are doing.  Forty miles per hour–I’m sorry, but I just don’t “get it.”  What’s your motivation?  What kind of statement are you trying to make?  Is this some kind of hip, ironic driving that I’m too square to appreciate?  Please, enlighten me.  I really want to understand. 

If you’re having problems and can’t go faster than 40 miles per hour, at least not without a note from your mechanic, please, do yourself a favor and take the side streets.  The freeway is no place for a delicate engine such as yourself.  At least put your hazards on.  I mean, you look like a nice vehicle.  It would be a real shame if a driver less alert and conscientious than I were to smash right into you because he wasn’t expecting a shiny metal box to just be sitting there in the middle of the road like it was festival parking at the Pink Floyd concert.  It would be even more of a shame if some sicko were to become enraged by your tortoise-esque pace and, God forbid, do intentional damage to your auto body because he was just so effing sick of being stuck behind your lazy bumper while the rest of the world passes him by at 55+ miles per hour. 

I know, I know–trucks get away with this crap all the time, and it isn’t fair, but that’s the way of the world.  Might makes right, as sad as that may be.  Like the Darwin fish says, survival of the fittest, baby. 

Of course, the only reason I’m writing all this instead of cursing at you is that I’m in no particular hurry to get where I’m going this morning.  I’ll tell you this, though–you’ve given me a lot to think about today.  You really have. 

Sincerely,

Madhousewife, aka the American-made Minivan in Back of You