Four-Way Stop Signs

There is no better place to observe the instantaneous social understanding between two people than a deduction of the behavior exhibited at a four-way stop sign.  In just less than half-a-second each respective observer evaluates, computes, decides, trusts and shows gratitude.

Evaluation in the speed that the other car is traveling – “are they stopping? Will she stop? Nice car, but not as nice as mine.  She’s cute, but only a 7 from where I’m sitting.  The demeanor of her face states an ease that should be expected on a sunny sunday morning such as this – nowhere to go in a hurry, just driving from A to B in her cute little three-year-old white Acura.”

“She’ll stop, you can go,” my sub-conscience tells my right foot as the computation makes way to decision from the evaluation of her speed and the demeanor of her face and my foot listens pivoting downward on the gas and my truck and I accelerate forward as she stationarily passes me on the right, even amidst her stopping at her sign as self-predicted a quarter-second prior.

I look.  She looks. We lock eyes and mine rotate upwards ever-so-slightly saying, “Preciate-cha.”  And I continue on to the B for which I am destined and so does she.

And she, certainly, in that same blink of time went through the same process of evaluation, computation, decision, trust and gratitude – ‘red octagonal sign with the letters S-T-O-P indicates the necessity to remove right foot from right peddle, transfer horizontally to the left to the adjacent peddle to which the right foot should then rotate downward at a pressure appropriate to decrease the velocity of my car so as to fit like a glove just before the wide painted white line that is perpendicularly oriented adjacent to the aforementioned sign.  As there is a good looking guy in a red truck beginning to accelerate, I should come to a complete stop and look at him prior to re-accelerating forward.’

This morning, in this brief encounter, the 7 in the white acura and I shared an instantaneous mutual understanding of how to each exist in the moments associated with stopping and going at a four-way stop sign.  The experience is one of many that are typical and so crucial to each of our respective existence and, in this case, the well-being of our respective vehicles.  These are the momentary processes that makeup the DNA of the rest of our respective days, to our whole lives up until now and also the lives of those whom we each know and, to an exponentially decreasing degree, the lives of those whom we do not know but whom know the ones that we do know.

Far beyond the complexity of Google or of cellular telephones or the putting of a man on the moon is the ability of the human mind to quickly process and react to such seemingly insignificant daily social connections, which in every way map the history of Man in respect to the Micro and also the Macro.

See More.

Understand.

Do More Now.

Bonus Time

Recently, as I’ve been traveling a good bit to Miami, Tampa, or Mobile or maybe just an hour south, west or north, I like to call my old friends and family to just talk with no agenda, catching up and finding out about them and what’s going on and how’s it hangin or how’s the kid or the wife or the weather up there – I heard it’s cold, nice talking to ya, see you again sometime soon. Sometimes, the friends or cousins who I call more regularly will ask, “Are you on the road?” and then they’ll laugh and endulge me awhile as we make conversation.  “No offense”, I may say sincerely as none is really meant.

This is my Bonus Time and talking during it,  while on the road, is like when a pitch was bounced in homerun derby when we were kids – if you connect it’s all the better, but if not, that’s ok too, because it doesn’t really count against you.  In the game, the batter had but ten outs to hit as many homeruns as he could.  Anything that isn’t a homer is an out.  Though, if the pitch is bounced, then it is a Bonus Pitch and the batter can swing away with no penalty.

In the car on the road with the phone, there’s literally nothing else that I could be doing, so to squeeze out some conversation from those whom I don’t usually talk to during this time, well, that’s a bonus.  It’s gravy time; the icing; the extra little bit that that is so important but so often overlooked.  But what of my friend or family whom I’m talking to?

They’re like I’d be if I weren’t driving – BUSY with work or school or at the post office or in Target getting God knows what.  In most cases, they are far too busy for weather-talk or a catch-up convo.  They are (and to be honest, I am) usually in a ‘get to the point’ tone, half listening, too distracted in the day-to-day for yesterday’s stories or mindless BS that ‘just doesn’t matter.’  The trees, the trees, the trees, where art thou forest?

But, in our defense, we’ve got to guard against our time becuase, indeed, that is all we’ve got at the end of the day when we’re tired and lazy, mind in a blender, motivation waiting till tomorrow.  Just after washing the face and brushing the teeth, while reading just before sleep, there’s a notion of the person whom you muted the ringer as way to incognore thier from-the-road call and you think, “I wonder how he / she’s doing, are they still there with them, I remember that time” and you may chuckle a little to yourself and say, “I’ll call them back tomorrow if I’m not too busy.”

Why can’t everyday, traveling or not, have a bounced up bonus pitch whereby we take thirty minutes to talk to someone we don’t see everyday.  Someone who meant alot to the you that has become.  Even if distantly, albeit they still do.

If you look at it from a certain perspective, all the time tastes like brown gravy on peas and rice.  It’s all icing on the cake.  Every minute is extra.  We might as well take the time to enjoy it with those whom we have grown to accept.

We’ve gotta water the old gardens

every now and then too.  There’s

still some fruit there I tell ya.

Do More Now

All the Wild Daiseys

Words are the Authors of those who use them,

“…is the most ridiculous thing I

ever heard.  That’s just plain backwards.

Words don’t write a damn thing!

They just sit there and wait to

be read like some little wild

daisy in a field.”

But somebody had to plant that daisy;

“wild or not, and, like the words,

somebody’s gotta pick-um and put em

in a vase with water and place

the vase near sunlight.  Otherwise

it’ll just die there in your hand or

be left on the other side of a picnic

and forgotten.”

And what does that say about us?

Happy Hour

I like happy hour at bars full of slightly older women.  It’s like playing basketball with a bunch of 10 year olds on an 8 foot goal.  Like the way we used to play when we were 12 in the driveway for 6 hours straight, only breaking for a grilled cheesed lunch and maybe a 45 minute NBA Jam Tournement.  At night, we would play capture the flag across the street diagonally until 11 and then we would “camp out” slash terrorize the neighborhood – switching mailboxes and knocking over port-o-lets and ringing at least 3 doorbells and running like a bunch of madmen and like the time when my buddy treated the Potato Chip Man’s front door intercom like it was a McDonald’s drive through menu.  I think that was the time when the cops were called and we had to hide in a ditch almost a mile from my house and we sprinted from ditch to ditch as if we were in World War 1.  We eventually split up in pairs through flower beds and in between narrowly adjacent fences, past loud barking dogs until we ended up back where we started.  What a good day that was? 

Now, Thursday night, just past 9, I’m already looking forward to drinking 2 fers with a bunch of cougers.  Go figure.