There are certain things a man says in his twenties that he never expects to revisit.
One of mine was simple.
If I ever become one of those people driving under the speed limit, somebody needs to kick my ass.
Not talk to me.
Not reason with me.
Not write me a polite letter.
Just kick my ass.
Well folks, I regret to inform you that I may officially qualify.
The realization hit me somewhere between a stoplight and a mild case of public embarrassment. I looked down at the speedometer and discovered I wasn’t speeding. I wasn’t even keeping up with the guy speeding.
I was driving the exact speed limit.
The exact speed limit.
Like some kind of responsible citizen.
I immediately became suspicious of myself.
As a younger man, I had very strong opinions about people who drove slowly. I viewed them as rolling roadblocks. Human traffic cones. People who apparently had nowhere to be and all day to get there.
Then life happened.
Somewhere along the way, my brain became occupied by approximately 7,000 things at once.
Newspaper deadlines.
Advertisers.
Bills.
Politics.
Community drama.
Why my back hurts when I sleep.
Why my knees hurt when I stand.
Why I walked into the kitchen.
And why every password in America suddenly requires seventeen symbols, two capital letters, and the blood of a virgin goat.
By the time my brain finishes sorting through all of that nonsense, I’ve apparently driven three miles at exactly the posted speed limit.
I don’t even remember making the transition.
One day I was the guy wondering why everybody was driving so slow.
Now I’m the guy causing somebody else to wonder why everybody is driving so slow.
That’s a hard pill to swallow.
What concerns me most is that I used to see older drivers and think they were sightseeing.
Now I understand they weren’t sightseeing at all.
They were thinking.
Thinking about taxes.
Thinking about grandchildren.
Thinking about retirement.
Thinking about whether they remembered to lock the front door.
Thinking about whether they took their vitamins.
Thinking about why they walked into the garage.
Thinking about why they walked into the garage in the first place.
Then suddenly they’re driving thirty-three in a thirty-five and the guy behind them is contemplating homicide.
For the record, I am not ready to surrender.
I still believe the speed limit is not a suggested maximum level of excitement.
I still believe people who drive ten miles under the limit should be forced to explain themselves in writing.
And I still believe traffic backed up behind one vehicle should qualify as a public nuisance.
But after this week’s discovery, I am forced to acknowledge a painful truth.
I have become dangerously close to the very thing I spent years complaining about.
For that, I offer my sincere apology to the residents of Grants Pass and the surrounding communities.
If you’ve been stuck behind a silver vehicle moving through town with all the urgency of a grazing cow, there is now a reasonable chance that vehicle was me.
I will do better.
I will pay attention.
I will attempt to keep my mind focused on driving instead of mentally composing newspaper articles while sitting at red lights.
And if you happen to see me creeping through town five miles under the speed limit, feel free to honk.
I deserve it.
If it gets much worse than that, pull me over and remind me who I used to be.
Because somewhere inside this fifty-four-year-old body is still a younger version of me screaming from the back seat.
Faster, old man.
Faster.