Ragging On Traffic, A New Sport...

By Ron Mexico

Contributor

McALLEN, Texas - The woman was headed for a Payless Shoe Store somewhere in the north side of town, where she hoped to find a pair of red Liz Claiborne pumps on sale. The thing was she did not know if the store known for shoe sales even carried the popular brand. Up the street she roared, gunning the engine with each passing traffic light. Red, stop. Green, go. She was on some sort of female adrenaline, eager to get the shoes for a date that night with some Lothario she thought would appreciate the shoes. At the corner of N. 10th Street and Pecan, she fell in behind a fancy and expensive BMW. The light was red, but she had big plans for shooting around the car and moving on toward the store. She had no freakin' idea that it was even up that way. A girlfriend had said she thought she'd seen one over alongside a Target store near the corner of Trenton, behind a McDonald's and a Shell gas station.

The light turned green and the cars in the adjoining lane shot forward.

The Beamer in front of her, however, took its time crossing the busy intersection. That's when the shoe-seeking woman let go a string of profanity that would have made a Redneck or Pachuco cringe. Something about God was followed by something about something being damned, and then it was the F word accompanied by the pronoun known far and wide as one you use when addressing a guilty party, as in "You did it!" You in this case couldn't hear a damned thing. The late-model BMW with the Mexico license plates eased into the 30 mph range without a care in the world. My friend, meanwhile, was livid, unable to stop the cursing and the finger-gesturing and the ceaseless Italian salute to a miscreant.

"Bastards!" she threw out and the BMW seemed to lurch a bit faster, to perhaps 35 mph. My friend couldn't move over to the adjoining lane. That one was steady scene of passing vehicles, trucks and vans and buses and a motorcycle and a cab or two.

"Goddammit!" came out of my lovely friend's mouth. Bastard, three times. The BMW began rolling a bit faster and the moving vehicles in the other lane soon allowed my friend to pass. I half-expected she would inch alongside the Beamer and slow down just enough to flick the bird at the driver. She did, and I was somewhat embarrassed to see a very old lady at the wheel of the Mexican car. the woman appeared to be lost, neck in a discernible swivel as she read the arriving street names and, it appeared, the names of the businesses lining the drag. Shortly, we watched as she nosed into a strip mall where the largest business appeared to be a Chinese restaurant.

My friend said nothing more for two-three blocks.

Then it came, "There's too many out-of-towners in McAllen these days. All they do is fuck it up for locals. Can you believe that old, fajita-faced hag back there? Unbeeeeelevable!"

We never saw - or found- the shoe store.

When I saw my friend at the bar later that night, she was wearing a pair of leather sandals with strappings that wrapped around her ankles. She frowned when she caught me looking at her feet, but threw me no emotion when I stared at her low-hanging blouse packing her best side. Her date, she told me, was a high-necked dude from Oklahoma, and when I asked about his license plates, she said, "Oklahomans drive like freakin' maniacs, but I can live with that."

I nodded.

Traffic doesn't bug me. I'm oblivious to the everyday annoyances. Yep, I can put up with every sort of lousy driver out there, and it doesn't faze me one iota. No, sir. Not even a wayward 18-wheeler on a hellbent, out-of-control roll. Bring it. Kill me doing 95 mph. Ride me, baby. Who cares? It's high-excitement, a thrill, a roll, a brain-whipper, a leg-snapper, a throat-filler. The road don't bite is what Junior Bonner used to say, and I believe it. Hell, yeah!

What does loop me is finding pads inside a woman's bra...that and panties with a built-in butt. Uh-uh, no...

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[Editor's Note: Reporter Ron Mexico is a refugee from the War on Bad Marriages...]