Passenger

Before I start, I should say that Max is, in fact, lying directly on top of Penny in today's pointless photo.

Max is also, in fact, part cat and part leech.

Ok, so maybe that's not actual fact. It sure seems like it sometimes, though.

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Given today's post title, did everyone get yesterday's Iggy Pop reference?

Come on. It was an easy one.

Fiiine then. Gimme a sec...

Here we go. Incidentally, you should check out one or two of the live versions as well. I did.

Now, would anyone like to know what that song has to do with anything? I hope you do, since I promised I'd try to make a half-decent post this time around and it's what I'm going to talk about.

Passengers, that is.

I'm one.

Maybe not in the way the song means, but I definitely have the passenger mindset. This became abundantly clear yet again this week when I had to drive out of town for a program at a school.

I get unreasonably nervous when I have to drive anywhere that I don't have a fairly complete mental map for. And why? Well, first of all I don't especially like driving. If I lived in a part of the world where I could go about my daily business without the need to drive, I would happy send Dirty Moe off to the crusher in the sky without much of a second thought. That's not very realistic around here, unfortunately, so I suck it up and tool around town in my semi-loved car (you don't give things nicknames if you completely loathe them, do you?).

Having to get myself to a place like an out-of-town school also messes with my OLF sensibilities in a big way. Obsessiveness goes hand in hand with control issues, and if I'm driving somewhere unfamiliar there's a pretty good chance I could get lost or be late or have the car break down or...

Yeah. You get the picture.

The biggest problem with trips like that, however, is that I really do prefer to be a passenger. I like to watch the world go by without having to worry about what's coming up in the road. I know that there are plenty of people out there who have a need to take the wheel (and I'm not speaking metaphorically here), but I'm not one of them. I'd sooner relax. If we had such a thing as passenger service here, I'd be all about riding the train to just about anywhere it would take me.

This occasionally leads to difficulties. When you're doing the passenger thing and enjoying the scenery as you go, you often haven't got a clue where you are when you actually get there. Or if you do have a clue where you are, there's not much chance that you'd be able to retrace the steps that got you there without a Hansel and Gretel style trail of bread crumbs.

And if you remember, the bread crumbs didn't work out so well for Hansel and Gretel.

What I'm trying to say in a roundabout way (and with a slight tinge of embarrassment) is that the school I visited this week is one that I go to almost every year for a special event, but even then I didn't quite know where it was because up until now I'd always been happily belted into the passenger seat and pretty much completely oblivious as to where it was we were going.

Sad, really.

And it made for an interesting trip this week, what with me and my nervousness and my Google Maps printout which might have given decent directions except for the part where the route was blocked by construction...

Relax. I made it ok. Just had to do a bit more circling around than I'd planned to, and only sort of lucked into an alternate route out of town when I was done with the afternoon's presentation.

It's so much easier to be a passenger, you know.






I'm done blathering now. If you need something more, watch this. That's what I'll be doing... or at least that's what I'll be doing after I get some lunch.