A Letter To BMW Owners
…and some Mercedes owners, and some of those Honda-on-the-outside-Ferrari-on-the-inside types too.
Dear BMW Owner,
We know you are God’s own gift to the rest of mankind. Clearly your time and your very presence on the road are so important as to delegate the rest of us mortals to cower on the edge like frightened beavers.
Your tenacity and dexterity are to be marveled upon time and again, regardless of the state of either the road or our minds.
Unfortunately though, mortals as we are, stress and the price of living on a day like today do take a toll on us, and since we lack the wings of angels that you are bestowed with, we cannot always appreciate the flair you bring to our mundane Thursday morning commute.
Your tailgating, your weaving in between cars at distances that would stop a fly’s heart, and your zero to sixty acceleration in four seconds, leaves our feathers frequently ruffled and an unmentionable finger waving your tail-lights goodbye as you swing away.
Personally, I drive a car that has the body of a Prius and the heart of a lion. While it dreams of shooting around in the abrupt comet-like spurts that characterize the most astute and successful traffic beaters, it cannot but give in to the limitations of its design for efficiency at the expense of speed.
Nonetheless, it is a car I enjoy driving, and nothing beats my pleasure at saving all that money when my touchscreen display shows a number that’s close to 50 mph and even closer to my heart.
I am well aware however, dear BMW driver, and can well imagine that look of horrified dismay on your face as you enter a crowded highway only to find yourself stuck behind the dromedary back of a Prius like mine.
A quick flash in your mind must surely show you the travails of a day that begin with losing 4.6 minutes because the car in front had the audacity to swim happily with the rest of the throng.
Your incessant search for that one pint-sized gap in between bumpers shields you from the fact that this lion-hearted car in front actually lets you, helps you, and wants you to drive hurriedly away!
Because make no mistake, dear BMW driver, it is no pleasure being tailgated by you. The feeling is akin to having a particularly anal, bespectacled, fire-breathing math teacher breathing down your neck as you attempt to finish your final exam with an iota of dignity. A fly swatter couldn’t be more useful in a situation like this, if one were at hand that is.
Anyway, dear BMW driver, the point of this letter is really to say that the road, like the world, is big enough for both of us. The grass may be greener where you’re getting to, at ninety mph, but the rest of us are quite content with the journey itself.
We’ll catch up with you in time. Or perhaps we won’t. It doesn’t matter.
If we do however, we’ll exchange stories. And you can tell us how that job interview you were rushing to went, or that happy hour, or your poker game.
And we’ll tell you what you missed on the road.
Upside down lettering on the windshield, reflected from a greeting card on the dashboard. The sun hitting at the temples and bouncing down to the jaws. That cop parked behind a bush, sharpening his radar gun with a smirk on his face. A lone rider of the Clint Eastwood variety, cigarette in mouth, and a dog in the back.
And the mountains, the rolling rolling mountains, like a dragonfly drunk on ambrosia, the mountains that tell you to wait just a little longer, because the ride’s only just getting better.
