Dodging Oobleck and Aliens

We now return to our generally scheduled crankiness.

Ahem.

We had rain today over most of the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, but from the way people behaved you would have thought the clouds were spitting meatballs or oobleck instead of water.  The shoulders of the 101 were strewn with wreckage; I haven't seen that many demolished cars in one day since the last time Barry insisted we watch several back-to-back episodes of World's Dumbest Drivers.  Traffic was backed up clear across the valley.  Halfway through the drive home I morphed from a reasonably sane middle-aged woman into a choleric curmudgeon.

At this time of year, we have two types of residents: those who live here permanently and almost never see rain, and the seasonal migrants from Up North who are at least theoretically familiar with rain, sleet, snow, and other forms of weather nastiness.  Problems arise when these two groups encounter each other on the roads on a nice day; on a day like today, disaster ensues.  The locals tend to creep cautiously along with one wondering eye on the lowering skies.  The visiting aliens, on the other hand, zoom blithely onto the interstate at excessive speeds, apparently unaware that grease and grime have been building up on the roads during the dry months, all the better to send them hydroplaning into the ditches the first time they oversteer to avoid a hypercautious permanent resident.  That would be fine if they didn't take several other cars with them and tie up the local police, ambulance services, and traffic for hours at a time, but they do.

(Deep breath.)

OK, I'm calmer now.  Still, it's enough to make anyone yearn for the comfort and ease of a Star Trekkian transporter unit.  What I wouldn't give for the ability to say, "Beam me up, Scotty," and be answered.

"Road rage is the expression of the amateur sociopath in all of us, cured by running into a professional."  ~Robert Brault