Friday, August 13, 2021If It Had Been Target, I Might Have Understood More
To properly tell this story, I have to set it up. So, stick with me for a second.
While in Tennessee, we stayed in Pigeon Forge. The cheer competition was in Knoxville, but Pigeon Forge is relatively close and the hotels were more kid-friendly. Hahahalolosob ... that didn't matter thanks to Delta, but WHATEVER. Pigeon Forge is essentially a tourist trap. There's a strip filled with family-friendly activities and bright lights. I think the whole thing comes across as the "Redneck Vegas Strip" sprinkled with a heavy dose of Bible belt and chaos. I mean, one store has literal goats on the roof while another has giant stuffed bears in front of the biggest JESUS SAVES sign I've ever seen. There are endless mini golf places surrounded by suspicious carnivals and $9.99 touristy stores.
Traffic blows.
The main drag is seven lanes of people who don't know where they're going and who are easily distracted by sparkling lights. There are only a few opportunities to turn left because mostly the powers-that-be want you to do a u-turn and stick to right turns. Which, that's fine. Totally fine.
But there's one person who didn't figure out how it all works.
It was on our way out of town that the whole thing happened. I was happily driving down the middle lane of the three lanes headed out of the chaos when the car in front of me suddenly slammed on their brakes.
We were at an intersection. The light was green.
The driver turned on their left turn signal and I figured it all out. There was a Walmart to our left and apparently it was a beacon of hope and joy for the driver in front of us because she SUPER wanted to turn into the parking lot. The only problem was that there were three lanes of traffic headed towards us, a turn lane that was filled for a long distance, and a lane of traffic going straight. The woman literally was trying to turn left across five lanes of traffic.
Don't do that, you guys. It's not cool.
Traffic piled up behind me as the woman just sat in the middle of the intersection, right behind the green light, waiting for a chance to dart across the five lanes so she could get to the promised land.
It was nerve-wracking. I was worried that the woman would turn when she didn't have time and end up getting hit. Even more so, I was worried that someone behind me would see the green light and not realize we were camped out waiting for Walmart's Biggest Fan to make her move. So I did a thing I didn't know I knew how to do. I guess Pittsburgh has taught me? Maybe?
You guys, my car has a horn. WHO KNEW? I laid on that horn and did my best impression of a Pittsburgher and just kept on honking.
The woman didn't budge. Apparently she has nerves of steel. She could remain stopped at a green light, wait patiently for hundreds of cars to pass, and not mind for a moment that someone was honking at her. She just sat there and sat there and I honked and honked.
Legit, I grew more and more nervous. It seemed like one of those moments that ALWAYS ends with something bad, and I really hoped it wasn't that I was going to get rear-ended. I didn't have space to dive around Little Miss Walmart, so I was stuck and hoping against hope that I wouldn't get crushed. So I honked some more.
Y'all, there are lots of things not working right in this world, but I'll be damned if there wasn't a police officer stopped at that light off to my right. It took him a REAL long time to realize he was looking at a potential disaster and I'm pretty sure he only noticed because I wouldn't quit with the horn, but just as the light turned yellow, he turned on his lights and siren and nudged Sleepless Without Walmart out of the road. I'm pretty sure she ended up with a ticket, but that's not why the story is sticking with me.
Nope.
It dawned on me almost immediately. That woman, the driver who so badly had to go to Walmart RIGHT THAT SECOND and couldn't possibly drive 50 yards to the next turn-around, was the embodiment of everything that's happening with COVID.
She had a thing she wanted. All y'all be damned because she's getting that thing she wanted. A (not-so-friendly) neighbor literally sounding the DANGER! DANGER! horn didn't make her budge. In all reality, the authority figure looking on didn't budge her. It took a bad ending (for her) before she cared even one iota about anything that was happening around her.
COVID is never going away.
