Driving in Dallas


Mamas, don't let your children play so much on the computer..

Aodán and Xander have a new game they like to play when I am driving. One of them will announce, in an amazing sportscaster voice for a child who has never seen televised sports, that the Great Green Odyssey is in fourth place, and now being passed on the right by the Superpower Snowball, now on the left the Mean Green Machine is taking the lead, ooh watch out, from behind, here comes the Red Rocket. I think this comes in part from some racing game they play on the computer, but I worry about my ability to tune it out and drive safely. It's very tempting to view Northwest Highway as a giant racetrack, to want to get ahead, even to dehumanize my competitors, I mean, fellow drivers, and instead think that the guy who just zoomed around me to pass on the right and is now turning left, making me stop while all the drivers behind me deftly pull into the center lane, trapping me, is just a computer-generated obstacle, a test of my driving skills. Here we all are trapped in all this glass and steel, no eye contact, and, this being Texas, I'm sure someobdy is armed. I have to remind myself that the large SUV in front of me is probably just driven by a nice person with lousy taste in cars and less awakened environmental awareness, but it's not about "us" and "them." Still I think I am going to have to train the kids to play some different games, to make up stories like, "The poor man in that red sports car -- his mother is very sick and the only thing she thought would make her feel better is an ice cream sundae, and he drove across town to find her favorite kind, and he's so worried about her." And hope and pray that everybody around me isn't listening to their inner six year old, feeling grimly determined to "win."

Posted: Wed - July 23, 2003 at 06:41 PM      

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