Poetry Monday: Driving

It's Poetry Monday, and this week's topic is "driving" . . . Join Delores and me as we take this topic out for a spin! You can leave a poem in the comments on either of our blogs, or on your own. If you do the latter, be sure to leave a comment so we can come along and enjoy your contribution.

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As you might have guessed from my accidental posting earlier, which I was only attempting to rename so I could start this one instead, but failed, I was going to write about all the driving I did during December and January to our daughter's house, which our son is now renting, which we were helping to prepare for rental, which is a three-and-a-half-hour round trip away from us; driving that took me through rain, snow flurries, snow squalls, heavy snow, unplowed roads, and unsalted roads, and always the trip home was after dark, so there was that complication, too.

And then I realized, there really wasn't anything to write about, much less write a good poem about. I drove. I ran into weather. I got home unscathed. I did it numerous times. I'm still alive.

It always faintly surprises me -- but definitely makes me happy -- when I do that drive and I get home alive. I feel like someday that will not happen. It's mostly highway, and I'm fine with that, but I don't like the merging into traffic and I really, really don't like when traffic is merging with me. Add in the bad weather and it gets my blood pressure up a bit.

However, it's not at all exciting or interesting except in the way that I keep having a sense of impending doom and it keeps turning out okay.

So at the last minute I decided I had to write about "driving" in some other way.

I love this icanhas.cheezburger.com meme, so I started with that:

I was the primary vehicular conveyance operator when our kids were in school, so I identify with this kitty. (Kids, if you're reading, it was the carpool kids I'm talking about, not you, LOL)

But that didn't loosen up my poem-writing brain cells a bit, so I decided just to post all the memes in my files about animals driving vehicles. Don't worry, there's a poem at the end, kinda.

And the poem? It's a re-working of an old verse my friends and I used to write in each other's autograph books back in junior high school (do you remember autograph books?) and the original went like this (insert name of friend where I have put Jenny):

Jenny had a little car
And it was painted red
And everywhere that Jenny went
The police picked up the dead

It doesn't seem so funny now, after decades of driving -- and decades of reading about road fatalities in the newspapers -- but at the time we thought it was hilarious.

Anyhow, my poem today is prompted by a story my long-haul trucker uncle told us a few years back. He and another trucker were driving one behind the other on a stretch of highway, and his buddy told him to look out for a particular colour and make of car that had just passed him and was approaching my uncle's truck to pass him. The buddy said to take a good look at the woman driving the car.

So my uncle did. And what did he see? The woman was nursing a baby, drinking a can of pop, smoking a cigarette, and talking on her cell phone. While passing tractor-trailers on the highway.

True story.

Phew! Makes you wonder how long she lived to keep doing that . . .

Time for the new version.


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Driving

Missy had a little car
She liked to drive it fast
If there were any cars in front
She simply had to pass

If thirst or hunger crossed her mind
She drank or ate at will
If craving for a cigarette
Her craving she'd fulfill

If friends sent her a text or two
Or called her on her phone
She'd type or chat without delay
Too social to postpone

She thought that highway safety rules
Were never meant for her
But only for "the other guy"
To whom she was a blur

Then came a day she thumbed her nose
At rules one time too many
What happened then in Missy's life?
Why, Missy hadn't any


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Whoa, that took a dark turn. But also a realistic one. I just hope Missy didn't take anyone else out with her when she went for her final drive . . .

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Please have a good week and drive safely! And especially watch out for the Missys of the world. So you can come back next week and see what Delores and I are up to :)

Nothing to do with the post or the poem, but what a cool cat :)

Update:  Delores has come up with next week's topic:  WINTER WINDOWS . . . thank you, Delores!