Momnesia

Blind Melonheads

AUGUSTA, GA. - I was driving back from an appointment in North Augusta the other day when a red SUV cut over into my lane right on top of me.

"Gahhhhh!" I screamed. I hit the brakes. We do NOT have the money for major accident repair right now. The SUV closed the lane gap like nothing out of the ordinary happened and drove on.

Irritated, but happy not to have been crushed to death, I calmed my rapidly beating heart and accelerated from "Old Lady Sitting on a Phone Book to Drive" to "Nothing to See Here, Lookie-Loos. Go Back to Your Knitting." But I was a little irritated.

I changed lanes from the right to the left, in anticipation of hitting the left turn lane onto Georgia Avenue from Martintown Road, keeping a wary eye on the red monster nearby. It's a good thing I did. Without so much as a howdy-doo - and obviously without using a frickin' turn signal or anything - the stupid blankety-blank swooped into my lane.

"HEY!" I yelled as I slowed down on the mercifully unoccupied yellow line. I gave the driver a brief blast of my horn. "What the (#^@%) are you doing?!!!"

The turn lane opened up very quickly, and I was able to slip into it before engaging an oncoming car in an inexplicable game of highway chicken. As I slowed to a stop behind another car, I cringed as the red SUV passed me.

And then I saw it: the reason they'd almost killed me twice was that I was in their blind spot. And their blind spot, for reasons I will never understand, was the entire left side of their car because they'd repaired a busted window with frickin' plywood.