People often ask me why I like driving. I’m not sure I have a solid answer to that question. I’ll usually respond with something along the lines of “uhhh I don’t know vroom vroom go fast,” or whatever feels most fitting for the context of the question. Who knows. I should probably note that I’m a commuter at Arcadia University, a decision that everyone told me I would regret because it’s not the “true college experience.” If that true experience is extra debt and no escape from consistently bad food, I’ll pass, thanks.
Anyways, since I’m a commuter I do quite a bit of driving every week and because I spend so much time in the car, I’ve found ways to entertain myself along the way. Sometimes the laughs come from another person along the trip, like the time I watched a mail person cut off the car that was trying to go around them while flipping the other driver off, only to stop at the next mailbox. Sometimes my entertainment comes from whatever I’m listening to at the time, whether it’s some music I’m blasting or a new podcast I’m interested in. Sometimes I also spend my rides thinking. I could be thinking about anything. From what I ate for breakfast (which is nothing by the way. I have coffee and that’s it. Every day.) all the way to pondering of our very existence in this space and time. Maybe I have a movie on my mind and I’m working through a theory for it, maybe I’m trying to hold onto an idea for a poem (because writing while driving is frowned upon), or maybe I’m planning out what I have to do when I get to my destination. The possibilities are truly endless. There really is something special about moving at high speeds in my 3,400 pound Volkswagen death machine that really gets my brain moving.
That’s exactly the purpose of this column though: to share all of this with you. Because though it may not seem like it, a lot goes on throughout every commute. A lot of fun, a lot of introspection, a lot of over-exaggerated singing while making prolonged eye contact with people at red lights, and of course, a lot of vroom vroom go fast. Each week, I’ll publish an edition of Driver’s Ed and discuss something from my rides for that given week. The exciting part is that there is absolutely no way to know what that might bring, because that’s the very nature of a car ride!
I’ll be back next Friday to take us to wherever my mind may wander in the coming days. So for now hop on in, put on your seat belt, and enjoy the ride.
