Three Promises for You

You're sitting on the freeway, with cars and trucks lining the road in front of you, each pair of taillights a set of eyes belonging to a heavy inanimate object between you and your destination. If you're on the wrong highway, you won't find it convenient to exit and go another way, so you just crawl along, getting excited if you hit 10 MPH, only to slam to a stop again.

You start thinking to yourself, well, if there are two ambulances and at least three bumpers on the ground, then this will be worth seeing. Then you remember that it's bad to wish needing an ambulance on others, so you turn up the radio, pick up that novel on the passenger seat to read, or start Facebooking.

A while later, you see blinking red lights in the opposing lane. The ambulances and tow trucks are there, but they're on the other side of the highway. There was NOTHING blocking your side of the road. The only reason that you've spent the last 20 minutes going a half-mile is that everyone in front of you just HAD to stop and look. That's right...you're caught in Onlooker Slowdown.

So what do you do when it's your turn to pass the wreck? Do you keep your eyes focused ahead and speed up? Of course not. You want to have a look yourself. And so you pass the gift of gridlock on to the drivers behind you.

This blog is dedicated (primarily) to those instances of irony that confound common sense and yet remain, apparently, a crucial part of the way we live. However, I will also post other things too sometimes.

Because you probably don't need another blog to cram your inbox with new posts, though, I will make three promises to you:

1. I will not post anything that I would not want to read.
2. I will respond to any comments that you want to share -- and that I feel like responding to.
3. I will not post any pictures of Marianne Gingrich.

Enjoy!

Peter