Being back in New York is bittersweet. I miss home (metro Detroit) and all of the familiar comforts of hometown friends, family, and places. I got to see my mom for the first time since the lockdown (because of where I live combined with her health and age, we didn't want to chance it), I got to see so many old friends. I ran into people I haven't seen for decades, some of them in the most unexpected places. I ate at all my favorite restaurants, I brought Better Made potato chips back to NYC. I drove past the house I grew up in. HOWEVER. There is one thing I do. Not. Miss.
CARS!
I have never been a car person and was nearly wiped off the planet for the few years I did drive by hitting a deer once, spinning out on ice more than once, wrecking my wheel alignment in a Burger King drive-thru cement divider and not realizing it until I was spinning around on I-275 and had to actually jump out of the car to save my life (despite nearly being killed for that dubious decision), and just being nervous as hell behind the wheel most of the time. But thanks to the legalization of the crack cocaine passing for marijuana these days (!!!), the roads have never felt more dangerous. I don't know about elsewhere, but where I am from, people are driving like raving lunatics on the highways and the roads and I live in terror for my friends and family in metro Detroit.
One particular night in an Uber on construction-riddled 696 West late at night, I can only describe what I experienced in that car as turbulence. The roads closed off were being fixed and the ones traveled were bumpy and bifurcated by cracks. So, you would think that metro Detroit drivers would be driving cautiously, right? Especially in notoriously cop-patrolling and affluent Oakland County. Well...Hell no! People were FLYING in the only two working lanes, weaving in and out between other cars, blowing weed smoke, texting, and going about 120 mph in 80 mph zones. People were driving like there was a natural disaster chasing us all. But, disastrous as it felt, it was totally unnatural. No doubt, many or all of these speed demons were drunk, high, or just generally douchebaggy, as few seemed to care about death, DUIs, totaling their cars, and forget about anyone else's life. I was terrified. The real turbulence I experienced on the flight there did not scare me nearly as much as that trip. Luckily, my Uber driver was kind enough to get the hell off of that highways at my request and take one of the Mile Roads (this is a Detroit thing, folks) to my destination.
So I ask my metro Detroit homies: Am I overreacting? Because I haven't driven a car in decades and most Ubers and taxis I'm in here don't have many venues where you can go that fast. (Although, they do try it!) But all the anxiety of subway lunatics went out of my head on that trip (and the very, very, very slow ride back that I requested from the super understanding other Uber driver) as I bulleted across town to an event I worried might actually cost me my life.
Be careful on the roads, folks. (And if you like the garbage that passes for weed today, please smoke that shit if you are blessed enough to get your ass home. Damn!)
