Crazy Car Dude

Caayn and I were driving somewhere, I'm not sure where. Possibly the dog store to buy Sully a frisbee (they didn't have the 'right' kind so he settled for another--plus he was attached to a clicker trainer, so now I have one of those, whee!).

Anyway, it started when we were leaving base. You drive through a thingy that's considered the gate, even though it's not literally a gate. Directly after that, there is a set of poles in a slalom thing (they have that going in too). Well, some guy had parked on the side just past the gate. Dude, not a good place to stop, people need to go through. The car in front of me cautiously inches past, since it wasn't apparent what the hell the guy was doing. I was inching past when the guy cuts me off and speeds up. Umm, okay, whatever. Rude, but I can deal with it.

Now, for most people leaving the base, the destination is a place called 'downtown', which would be the town of Minot itself. To get there you take about a 12 mile drive down an absolutely straight highway, going 70mph. Unless it's winter. So we're toodling down the road, talking about this or that, listening to the radio, being silly with Sully, when I catch up to the dude from the gate. I'm already in the left lane, my preferred lane for no particular reason, so it's no big deal.

Except the guy totally does a whip necked side glance at us, and then speeds up about 10mph. We look at each other and laugh. What a goon! (After he was probably about 6 or 7 car lengths ahead of us, he promptly slowed back down to whatever pace he'd been at before.) So we keep going, obviously, at 70mph... and guess what. We catch up to him. But before I get very close, he again speeds up. At this point, we're laughing pretty hysterically. I start to wonder if the guy has a morbid fear of being passed by a minivan. Because seriously, he doesn't speed up when any other car gets near him...

At this time, it has now become a prerogative to pass this guy. We've reached the first stoplight, which indicates town is just ahead. Speed limit drops to 55 and than 40 in a mile or so. The guy was so freaked out by our car coming near that he would literally zoom ahead and weave through traffic to get away. We're going back and forth between full out laughter and just maniacal giggling.

Finally, it looks like we are about to pass him. Nope! He weaves out of his lane and into ours and zips forth. This goes on all the way up broadway (? I don't actually know the name of the street). We lose him at a red light. But then, somehow we find him ahead of us. We're still pretty far from our destination at this point. We take the plunge and start passing him. I'm trying really hard not to have a huge silly grin on my face, because this whole situation is just so loony. What does crazy car dude do? (Although, when you look at it the other way, I suppose we were crazy car people too...) He turns to look at us, and flips us the peace sign. What!?

That was totally the last straw. We're laughing and trying to figure out what the heck was all happening. I mean really, this guy is military. Does the military know they have a guy as strange as all this in their ranks?

So we completed out trip to the dog store (I'm sticking to the dog store trip, because I'm pretty sure that was when it happened)... Achilles got to sniff some birds and it was funny, we looked at all sorts of toys... I showed Caayn the sort of muzzle I was thinking about getting for Achilles, and he said no way. (It's the cage sort; all sighthounds I've ever seen wearing a muzzle where that kind). He didn't people thinking Achilles was vicious or something (he's not). I went with the decision after trying it on Achilles. The metal was too heavy, so that the top was resting on his nose... not good for running, where it would bounce on his fragile nasal passages. I want to look into finding a plastic type maybe... I'd feel better if he had something on at the dog park. I know he's not hurting the other dogs, but I'd rather the other owners feel safe too; no one likes to see a strange dog chasing theirs while trying to catch 'em about the neck.

I also peeked at stuff, keeping dear whippet in mind. (It's a strange feeling to know I have another dog, she's just not here with the pack yet.) I'll have to meet her and find out her personality before buying anything. She'll need some clothes though, thats for sure. Did I say we had chosen her name out? She's going to be Athena, to fit in with our name scheme. All dogs have an A name, preferably god or goddess, but mythology works too (hence Achilles, not a god, but still just as good)! And for anyone who has a super good memory and was wondering how the name Abby fit in with that--Abby's real name was Apollonia, but if you have ever tried calling that out really fast, you'll see it's a bit too cumbersome.

To round off the story.... We left the dog store and were headed to the bypass to get to the dog park, when low and behold, the crazy car dude is two cars ahead of us! How funny is that? Just a silly little coincidence that finished that all up.

I thought this was totally hilarious, the whole thing. I never have weird things happen to me while driving. Other than watching an extreme amount of people running red lights. (Seriously--I have never stopped at a light without seeing at least one person run it, usually two.) Caayn is forever coming home and telling me about the silly things that have happened to him while driving. I think the worst was a winter or two ago when some guy was hauling ass down a housing street and then tried to stop at the sigh, on solid ice roads (I also swear that base snowplows do NOT work--its so much more dangerous driving on base in winter than anywhere else...) There was lots of sliding and a very near accident. That was scary to hear about.

Anyway, thats it! Funny story! :D

((Still contracting, but not quite like yesterday. I hit 37 weeks this friday. Also, I am totally kicking butt on my medical coding stuff... I think I've completely something like 5 tests in 3 days? I forgot how fun it is! And I'm calling Whippet Woman tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have more news on that front as to when we can get a chance to meet up. Maybe I'll get some pictures too. I can't wait to see what Athena looks like, really really.))