Brain Fertilizer

I have a cell phone, but it's cheap because we use it as it was intended: for help when broken down, lost, or "I'll be really late" and "so and so just had her baby and I couldn't reach you at home". I'd say in any given month it has 20 minutes on it. But I am glad I have it, it makes me feel secure.

I travel I-5 a ton and am stunned at how many people have a phone glued to their ear while unsuccessfully managing the fast lane. I think we should have the slow lane also be a mandatory "I am engrossed in a cell phone conversation" lane. Worse yet are the teenage girls with the "I am engrossed in a phone call AND am trying to apply mascara while driving 70 and I can't really drive anyway" situation.

When I was in school and worked at the Texaco to pay the bills, clunky "mobile phones" permanently affixed to the car were the hip thing to have. One time, a woman came in and asked for a fill of gas, inbetween bits of conversation on her phone.

Long story short, she was so engrossed in the call she must've forgot that I never gave her a receipt or returned her credit card. She pulled out of the station with the nozzle still fueling and my hand grasping the nozzle. She drug me for a moment, but by the time I got to my feet she had torn the hose from the pump, sending a geyser of 83 octane throughout the islands. And of course I was yelling "Heeeey! HEEEEEY!" the entire time.

She continued her conversation, acted like a b**** to ME, and snatched her credit card out of my hand and drove off. I have no idea if the manager did anything with her license plate, but I know he didn't call the cops. He should have.

Did i say that was going to be a short story? :)

And that's not to say some folks can't handle driving and talking. My dad can. You can. But I think most people can't. ;)

I can when I'm on a pretty-much deserted road. I don't try when I'm in any kind of traffic. It's not safe.

I struggle with this issue. On the one hand, people should be allowed to be responsible for themselves. On the other hand, when they fail to act responsibly, despite warnings and reminders, at what point do you step in and start forcing people?

Desite being able send any libertarian into fits of apoplexy by merely whispering, "Seat belt laws", I am absolutely convinced those laws were good. I wear my seatbelt as a result, and so do countless others and there's no way to know exactly how many thousands of lives have been saved because of it...only that thousands have lived.

...and yet, seat-belt violation penalties have become another way of funding govt, just like parking fines and speeding tickets: enforced little enough to ensure people keep doing it, along with a fine jacked up far higher than it should be to provide a good revenue stream, and jacked up ever higher to maintain the flow.

I dislike taxes, but hate dishonest, hidden taxation like that.