Anytime I'm driving anywhere of distance, I always try and get on a good team. For those of you who don't get on teams when you're driving, I highly recommend it. All you do is wait to find someone who is going around your speed (preferrably a little faster), and then follow them. Not in a rude, tailgatey kind of way, but in a cheerful, encouraging way that says "Hey, I've got your back, buddy. Don't worry about me, I'm in this for the long haul!" You then proceed to travel down the road together, protecting one another from the bothersome highway patrolmen with speeding tickets (they can't pull BOTH of you over, can they?), paving the way for risky back-to-back lane changes, quick left-lane passes, and sometimes, in the especially well-maveuvered partnership, the Double Glare. In this procedure, the offending slow/bad driver, the inconsiderate sharer-of-the-road who had the nerve to cut off not only you but also your esteemed partner, is graced with not one, but TWO dirty looks, and sometimes (as you might imagine only in your wildest dreams) the DOUBLE FLIP-OFF. You drive away from the Offender in glee, laughing and smiling at each other in shared triumph. It is truly a beautiful thing.
Before you get too excited about these teams, though, and begin asking yourself why you are such an IDIOT, an idiot to have missed all this, and to have suffered such loss in your overall quality of life, let me tell you the less-glamourous part of these teamships. At some point in your treck together, one of you will have to turn off, because you will have arrived at your exit. For some reason, I am most often the one who has the longer trip and is therefore deserted, and let me tell you, it's tough to handle. I mean, I know my partner had to exit there, and usually, if it was a healthy teammate relationship, he or she will cast a longing look over their respective shoulder as they drive down the exit ramp, and wave sadly. Even so, my pain remains. I try not to take it personally, but who of us can say that we always deal well with being left? Some days I can proceed on in loving remembrance, but other days I become bitter and angry, wondering how my ex-partner could have felt right about leading me on in such a way, how they made me feel so LOVED, so ACCEPTED, when all they were planning on doing was leaving me.
But by the time my next road-trip rolls around, I'm ready to be out there again, searching for the perfect car, the perfect speed - jumping lanes, and laughing and crying all over again. And I'm a better person for it, each time.
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