Beer Muscles? - Try Steel Muscles

Why do I walk around town instead of drive? For exercise? To be social? Too cheap for gas and insurance? No. I walk because I'm insane.

We all know some mild mannered guy who, somewhere around his thirteenth beer, becomes, well, an asshole. If he could see the future or remember the past, he would always stop drinking a bit earlier, say around twelve or, to avoid a too-close-to-call counting error, maybe at ten even, where having ten digits affords a natural abacus. Unfortunately, the same thirteenth beer that clouds his judgment also activates the auto-erase feature of his memory. He can neither predict his impending spiral into the abyss nor accurately recall his douchebaggery. Though I've come across a few of these barley pounders, to the best of my knowledge and even considering the auto-erase possibility, I have never been afflicted by beer muscles. Unfortunately, I suffer from similarly idiotic, irresponsible and latent muscles . . . steel muscles.

On my feet, I'm a decent guy. I'll hold the door for the next person to pass, let the guy behind me in the grocery line ahead when he only has a few things, help move a friend, and shovel snow from a neighbor's walk. But I hereby confess, with significant embarrassment, that when I get behind the wheel of a car I am in competition with every car ahead of me, every car that may approach me from behind, every stale light that may turn red before I get there, every car that cuts me off or boxes me out, everyone and everything. I get irritated at slow moving vehicles in the left lane, with people who don't "go" as soon as a light turns green, with pedestrians trying to cross against a light, and with everyone and everything that slows me from my destination, no matter where or what it is. On a long drive, I calculate and recalculate my estimated time of arrival with the accuracy necessary for a rocket launch. If I've "lost time" I'll make it up. If I've "made time" I'll move up the scheduled launch. I once received a speeding ticket on the way to a funeral - true story.

I have gone so far as to mentally project Jesus and Moses as the drivers of the cars ahead and behind me (but I swear, if Charlton Heston takes too long to finish his pass, hanging out on my quarter, in my blindspot, I'll use my chariot to part the sea of vehicles before us). I've imagined that each pedestrian in my way is Ghandi, and that Mother Theresa is behind the wheel of the eighteen wheeler cruising along ahead of me in the passing lane, going seven under the speed limit as though she and I have no place we'd rather be. These images work for a while (I mean minutes, not months), but eventually I always come back to the reality that none of these spiritual figures ever had to drive. Does patience come easily while wandering a desert for forty years, or does walking across a desert teach patience?

Some say that self-recognition of insanity is half the battle. They might be correct, but it's definitely the small half. At least now as I walk along a busy street and observe motorists' tempers flaring, and hear the horns and the yelling, I don't engage in the chaos. I just keep walking. Those people are crazy.