You think you’re living on the edge, miles from home with a cargo area full of perishable groceries in early June and the low-fuel warning light giving you an orange mal de ojo from the dash.
Until you get passed by someone driving on the rim.
So there I was, motoring back from the Wholeazon Amafoods with a week’s worth of grub, and I knew my low-fuel light was on. It flashed me before I even got to the store to offload a hunk of my Socialist Insecurity entitlement funding on tasty bits of this and that.
Ah, bugger it, I thought. I still have a couple gallons in the tank. Shit, I could probably make it to Santa Fe for an early lunch at La Choza, if I had a cooler and some ice for all this chow. But it’s probably smarter to head for home, refrigerate the perishables, and gas up the next time out.
Thus I’m in the left lane on Wyoming, getting set to hang a left on Comanche, when I hear this hideous racket coming up fast in the middle lane.
I figure it’s the Devil finally come to collect, or maybe just some poor workingman’s beater truck fixin’ to retire before he does, and in some spectacular fashion, too. But it sounds even worse than either of those possibilities, about like three Terminators dry-humping an Alien in a junkyard full of feral cats.
As I make the left lane I glance right and screeching past shudders some shitbag sedan with the left front tire completely gone and the driver either deaf, drunk, or some combination of the two, ’cause he ain’t making any effort to get out of that middle lane and over to some safe place where he can maybe figure out why the hell all these assholes are staring at him and how come he can’t hear the radio goddamnit?
This may or may not be a metaphor for politics in 2023.
Some of us are low on gas, but we’re aware of the situation and hope to address it at our earliest possible opportunity.
Some others are gonna just drive it right into the ground and Dog help you if you’re standing anywhere near where the wreckage skids to a stop.
The good news is, you can hear it coming a long ways off.
Mad Blog Media 
PO’G: Your metaphor in this case in spot on; and, might I suggest just to stir the intellectual rigor pot, it is too focused and can be expanded in the interest of self-awareness and constructive dialogue? 🙂
First I note that you’re in the left lane and looking to make a left turn. Metaphor?
Then you “glance right” (metaphor for “crossing the aisle” and engaging the middle/moderates?)
But then “he ain’t making any effort to get out of that middle lane and into some safe space ….” (metaphor for the middle isn’t a safe space nowadays?).
See? I could become a political commentator or sports editor and pick and choose my “conflict, controversy, and confrontation” theme to generate readership or clicks.
But that would only encourage more confirmation bias by our enlightened citizenship! 🙂
Just kiddin’!! As always a great Mad Dog thought-provoker:-) 🙂 🙂
Thanks, JD. The motorists down here definitely dance (or drive) to the beat of a different drummer.
Herself and I saw a guy blow the red at Montgomery and Juan Tabo the other evening … from a dead stop. Dude was sitting there at the light like everyone else, decided what the hell? And went for it.
And people wonder why the city doesn’t bother to sweep up the bits and pieces after a crash.
That low gas light gives me The Fear. I was riding the motorcycle back from Boston to Rochester, NY the summer I graduated from college. Figured I had enough gas to make it to the next rest stop on I-90, aka the New York State Thruway.
I was wrong, and chugged to a stop a few miles short. Sat there lamenting my fate when a friend, also headed back from Boston to Rochester, stopped as he saw me sitting there. Went to the next rest stop, and all they had was an empty beer can.
So he comes back, smiling, and hands me a beer can full of gas that just bot me to the gas station. Moral of the story? Don’t drink and drive?
I’ve driven (heh) Herself nuts on long road trips when I push the fuel envelope.
“Honey, the fuel light is on.”
“No worries, there’s a town … um … maybe 50 miles ahead. I think.”
(Cue the bad noise.)
I think perhaps a metaphorical Hummer instead. A bright orange one. I don’t believe the metaphor has evolved to a shitbag sedan yet. Later, but not yet.
On a parallel “Hmm?” note, I did see a cyclist yesterday riding along a downtown sidewalk in my area, without a rear tire. He was on the right sidewalk, and of course going the wrong way.
Regarding the low fuel light on our vehicles: Honda CRV – no problem. Ferrari minivan – You have 5 miles before pushing will be required.
These machines like to mess with our minds. En route to the grocery it struck me that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d stopped for gas. I looked at the dash, saw I’d gotten 315 miles out of that fillup (about 15 more than usual), and ping! Fuel light comes on.
Quick sidebar: I’ve known six people who swore that if you didn’t drive until the fuel light came on, then the “old” gas would sit at the bottom of the tank, turn to sludge, and gum up your carburetor. To burn the old gas, you had to go warming light + 20 miles.
All six of those people were from Boston.
Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.
Yeah, I hate it when that old gas gums up my carburetor. Funny thing though, the service techs at my auto repair shop look at me funny when I ask them which part is the carburetor. I mean my vehicle is relatively new and it should have one right?
Perhaps Click and Clack (the Tappet Bros) were responsible for the “old” gas rumor.
Ah, Tom and Ray. I loved those guys. The Alzheimer’s did for Tom, which was a terrible tragedy. Why does that friggin’ disease steal fine minds where there are so many defective ones hanging around doing nobody — including their owners — any good at all? It’s bo-oh-oh-GUS!
Are these the same people who, when the needle approached E, turned off all nonessential equipment in the car — radio, heater, headlights, etc. — closed all windows for enhanced aerodynamics, and then shifted into Irish Overdrive (neutral) for descents?
I never let it get below 1/2 of a tank. Otherwise, you can’t make it well into Mexico when the next coup happens.
That’s why I hoard bicycles. I can help get a couple dozen people across the border if need be.
There will be a small rental fee plus deposit, of course. Cash only, please. No checks or credit cards.
Yeah, we got a buncha dude-bros driving until the cords show because ain’t nobody got money for gas and tires, so to pay for the gas the tires gotta slide for a while, sometimes literally. And sometimes they get a little too threadbare and they get past the cords and into the air. Then you get the rim-riding like you saw. And it’s going to get worse because they just decided to stop the safety inspections here in TX.
Welcome to the Wild West, Hoss. We don’t have safety inspections here, either. People can drive whatever and frequently do. Although the cops will take notice if you happen to be popping wheelies on an ATV in the bus lane.
In Montana we call them “wonders”, and wonder if it is a motorcycle or a rusted-out redneck 4×4 Ford with a burned-out headlight coming at you. The damn Ford has $400 rims and bald tires. How do I know it is a redneck vehicle? It has the stars and bars decal on the tailgate, the bumper or the rear window sometimes in all three places. The gun rack is optional. The driver has a trucker cap on and the truck is rolling coal as the diesel hasn’t seen a tune-up in 10 years.
Sounds like my man Hal’s old GMC. He was hauling a load of whatever to a neighbor’s ranch when the rusty old driver’s-side chrome pipe step lost its grip on the front side and dug a furrow in the road. He got all medieval on it, cavemanning it back and forth until the ass-end broke free, then threw the step in the bed and went on about his bidness.