The Driving Adventures of the Banker Girls

It seems that Kate and I attract horrible drivers. We also seem to attract construction, slow drivers, speeding drivers, vulgar drivers, and dirty old men that like to stare into our car as we pass. They see us coming and yell "Look, there are those two banker girls" and speed up, trying to cause unneeded driving stress. It never fails; we leave work at 5:00 pm (on the dot) with smiles and happy faces. Once we approach any form of road, street, driveway or even a dirt path that might have at one time been used for a road, it all goes down hill from there. Gradually our faces turn into a sour, nasty scowling sight that only a mother can love (and a side note: mom, you have seen this face many times when I drive around Lindsay and I’m sure that you have a little twinge of "Ok, this kid is scaring me" every time the monster of Leslie's road rage is released).

(Remember the David Bowie movie "Labyrinth" - doesn't that look like one of the trolls?)...

Anyways, with King Street, Victoria Street, all the side streets around King and Victoria, and almost every other road in the cities of Kitchener and Waterloo closed for months of construction, we are left with only one option to get to and from work. Weber Street. Now, I love Weber Street as much as the next guy, but SERIOUSLY...when there are 204802482034 cars all trying to go the same direction and turn at the same places (because there are limited numbers of detour signs posted and someone in Public Works had the wonderful idea of closing TWO OF THE BUSIEST STREETS IN THE DOWNTOWN AREA at the same time) a little congestion is expected. The problem you might ask? It’s the people who can not wait in line like the rest of us poor drivers to make a turn or go through a stop light. Weber and Victoria is the intersection that I am talking about. There are two lanes heading towards Victoria, but soon after the intersection it drops down to one lane.

Don't push your way in cars, get in the left lane (the lane that remains) and wait your turn. Leave the right lane for people turning right.

Now, maybe it’s the fact that Kate and I don't do anything particularly exciting in the evening, or maybe it’s just that we value our lives and the safety our cars, but we are not in THAT much of a hurry to cut in front of another car to save ourselves 10 seconds. So, this young punk is speeding up beside us on the right, and we are looking at him, and he is looking at us. I'm thinking "oh no buddy, you are not getting in here!" and he’s thinking "by golly I’m gonna get in here". So what do we do? Tailgate. That's right, we prevent buddy boy over there from even coming close to getting ahead of us. It is my duty as a Waterloo citizen to teach bad drivers a lesson. Both of my hands are gripping the steering wheel (at 10 and 2), my foot is ready to fly off the brake onto the gas, and I am looking at Punk Boy out of the corner of my eye. He is looking back, GLARING back, trying to anticipate when I am going to give it the gas. He thinks he is so smart by attempting this little stunt. I'll show him

The Light turns Yellow...Kate says something that I can not repeat here. I think Punk Boy can read lips because he looked a little shocked. I can see out of the corner of my eye he is gripping the steering wheel pretty tightly - its go time.

Kate says something else. An attempt to distract Punk Boy? We will never know. It is a mystery like the pyramids of Egypt, or how they get the Caramel in the Caramilk bar.

Punk Boy is distracted... The Light turns green, the car ahead of me moves, and I am right on its tail. Punk Boy missed his chance, and was left in the dust.

HAHA victory for Kate and Leslie - Banker Girls 1, bad Drivers 0

As we crawl through the intersection I notice Punk Boy in his little punk car sitting on the side of the road. I guess no one else felt the love and kindness needed to let him in. I love it when the masses follow our lead