I’ve turned into my Granddad. I didn’t think it would happen this soon in my life, but it has. My crime? I drive the speed limit in the left hand lane on NM 528. I say crime because you should see the looks I get.

I don’t get it; between the ever present trolling police and the stoplight cameras, how can people be so bold as to fly by me with such confidence of not getting caught? I sound old, don’t I? I have turned into my Granddad! He used to come home perplexed as he described how the other drivers on I-95 in West Palm Beach, FL would furiously honk at him as he cruised 55mph in the left hand lane.

Comedian Louie Anderson even has a whole skit about people like me whom he calls the “keepers of the speed; those drivers who keep everyone honest”, and frustrated I might add. It must come naturally with age because “those” kind of people used to irk me too.

This Chevy girl grew up in a Michigan town surrounded by seven GM plants. I knew the difference between a Ford, Chrysler and the entire GM family by the time I was six. A town where Jeep was considered a foreign car and nobody dared drive one. If you ever saw a Mercedes you knew is was an out-of-towner. And switching your treads to snow tires every winter was as routine as scraping ice off your windshield or heating up your car lock with a lighter before attempting to insert your key (those were the days before automatic locks were invented).

I may be biased, but I have always felt that Michigan drivers (or most upper Midwesterners) were the best in the nation. We cut our teeth on icy roads, maneuvered through snow drifts, and perfected rooster tails and donuts in the parking lot of the local high school every winter, with all the Midwestern charm of courtesy we could muster.

Having lived in a few different regions across the country, I’ve had the enjoyable opportunity to share the road with a variety of drivers. Today I negotiate the lanes of NM 528 on a daily basis. I may have aged but I still have my edge. There are all kinds of drivers out there. My favorites are the teenagers who relentlessly ride my tail from light to light. Where’s the fire?

Also, have you noticed when going uphill; everyone seems to slowly creep up to the top? I take advantage of the options the open slots offer to decide which lane I think is going to be shorter at the next light. “Do I switch to that lane or stay put?” You know whatever you decide it always ends up the wrong choice, doesn’t it? And heaven help you if you happen to be on a downhill with a spinning cement truck behind you. I don’t think he meant to tailgate me last Tuesday; it’s just that he had ten tons of freshly mixed soft serve pushing on his gas pedal.

Night time always brings out the more questionable drivers. One night recently I was in line at the grocery behind this kid. I guess those fake I.D. makers are good at their craft because his worked. This baby-faced shopper had a case of Tecate, a bottle of Crown Royal, a liter of Red Passion MD 20/20 and some Visine. He had trouble written all over him. He paid in cash – no frequent shopper card for this guy, picked it all up and met his buddy in the waiting car out front. I grabbed my groceries and hoped I wasn’t going in the same direction.

Heading home, I leave the parking lot with a banana cream pie in the back. I am going 45mph and no one is going to make me go any faster. If I had my way, I’d travel in the safety of the good witch’s big pink bubble and not have to deal with the shenanigans. After all, speeding or tailgating would only get me an extra four seconds at home to eat my pie.