Traffic Survival School: Surviving The People

There's always at least one person in these classes who can't shut up about how much they don't want to be there. More so than that it's their insistence that they are far more inconvenienced and important than you and therefore their time is far more valuable than yours. "I hate wasting my time." Because the rest of us don't? Because everyone else here is just SO excited and enthralled with the prospect? Your time is no more important or special than anyone else’s, sweetie. Hate to break it to you. If you don't take this class then your license is suspended so maybe it IS worth your time. And maybe if you hadn't gotten a bazillion speeding tickets, a DUI, and then totaled your car, you wouldn't be in this class to begin with. So don't act like you're so superior to everyone else in here that made some stupid driving mistake.

It's also supremely enjoyable to have you sit a few chairs away from me and decide you need to call your coworkers to check on work stuff and forget how to use a reasonable phone voice. Then proceed to tell them you're "stuck sitting in the front row" and please call a few people and tell them all the same thing. Loudly. Please don't step outside or in the other room to make these calls, please, please, PLEASE make them loudly in front of all of us because we're all so very interested in your incredibly mentally stimulating job in sales with Express Flooring.

Then, please rush through the GROUP survey and then proceed to finish all four of the quizzes while commenting, "If we get all this done we can LEAVE. I hate wasting my time." Hate to break it to you honey, but we're here until 10. It also says in huge bold letters across every paper they give us to NOT ASK ABOUT LEAVING EARLY. If they said 6-10 they don't mean we can leave at 8. And please keep your Blackberry on and sneak looks at it while we're in class despite the fact that it's completely obvious and obnoxious. Oh wait, I forgot. You're so much more important than the rest of us. When we get a break please say loudly that now you can send some emails. Because no one else in class in inconvenienced by having to be here, just you. No one else had other things they'd rather be doing, just you. Silly me. Really, all you're doing is irritating the shit out of everyone else by concentrating, out loud, on how much you don't want to be here. You just sound like a pretentious, stuck up snot.

And please ask asinine questions. For instance when someone mentions the ticket you can get for flicking a cigarette butt out your window while driving, ask,” What are you supposed to do with them? Put them out in your car?" That IS what they make ashtrays in cars for. And if you don't want your car to smell like smoke maybe you shouldn't smoke in it. And if you don't like the smell of smoke on you then maybe you shouldn't smoke. Just throwing that out there.

Please just shut up and we'll all get through this and be back out on the roads to cut each other off like normal people.

Thanks for the ride, Lady!

I'm gonna sound like an asshole but I'm gonna say it anyway.

Get a car.

There is simply no excuse for an able bodied person in their late 20s-early 30s to not have a friggen car. None.

And I'm not talking about people that live in NY or San Fran or some place with other viable means of transportation. I mean out here on the west coast where everything is spread out.

How the hell do you get by without having a car? Oh, that's right. You call ME for a ride. I feel like I'm 18 again and got my first car. I had friends asking me if I wanted to go to Ventura and I thought hey, yeah! Cool! They want to hang out with me! And then they said, "Cool! I'll even give you gas money." And my face sank. They didn't want to hang out with me, they wanted a ride into town. At least they offered gas money. I have friends who never offer anything for carting them to and from a venue and act put out when you say, "Hey! Buy me a drink!" It's a sad day when you realize you aren't this persons friend, you're just their ride. They never call to chat or ask you to go to lunch or anything of a friend-like nature. It's only for a ride to a party or a show. Does it make sense to ask someone who lives less than a mile from a venue to drive 20 miles to your house to pick you up to go to said venue? I'm going to go with no. What kind of balls does it take for someone to do that? The guise of friendship.

Even giving a ride to help someone out in a tight spot can turn into me suddenly becoming the designated ride giver. Get your car fixed! Fix your priorities! Especially if you live out in BFE. How did me, the unemployed, broke girl become the chauffer? I don't have the money or the gas to drive out to BFE and pick you up. I just don't. One ride turns into a request for three more. Do I have sucker written across my head? Is there honestly no other person you could ask? Because I said yes once, not knowing where I had to drive to, I am now the go-to girl? No. I wouldn't do that to my friends. I wouldn't ask any of my friends more than once. I was being polite and helping you out, don't take advantage of me.

Either get a job close to home or get a fucking car. Seriously. Do you like depending on other people or, heaven forbid, public transportation to get around? I couldn't live without my own car, or being in a city where I didn't need one like DC. I don't like depending on other people and time schedules. I want to go when I want to go. This is the reason that I don't like carpooling unless it's really neccessary. You either get stuck somewhere or have to leave too early. Screw all of that.

I do have some friends who survived heartily without their cars. They took the bus and they sucked it up but they did it while they were saving the money to fix and/or get a car. This was even accomplished in LA by an actor friend of mine. No joke! It's the people who, for no justifiable reason, don't have cars that piss me off. If your car is constantly breaking down, save the money and fucking fix it already. If you're an adult and you'd rather just mooch off your "friends" for rides instead of getting your own car, prepare to lose all of said friends. I am not your transportation service. Suck up some goddamn responsibility and get yourself a fucking car. Be responsible, be independant, be an adult.

It boggles my mind. What the hell is wrong with people?