People do the strangest things

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I spend a lot of the time we’re out looking into cars and watching other people. I’m still surprised at the number of humans who seem to believe the minute they get into and shut the door of a car, they’re magically invisible. It’s like their own little world where they don’t need to pay attention to the road much, just the cursory glance in between texts, and no one sees them singing like they’re on American Idol, or dancing a little front seat bump and grind to the music.

The popularity of bluetooth headsets has made the sight of people riding along having involved conversations with themselves commonplace. It’s when they start making hand gestures that I wonder if they know the person they’re talking to can’t see them, but that I can, and they look crazy as hell.

I watched a lady completely freak out one day and start slamming her phone into the steering wheel. I have no doubt she was talking to Sprint customer service, because this is what I do every time I talk to Sprint customer service while driving.

I’ve seen people dance in the strangest places. The aisles of a convenience store seem to be fair game for a little rug cuttin’. I watched a kid in North Carolina do an Axl Rose snake dance in front of the candy display like he was trying to mesmerize it into coming with him. He almost had the Jolly Ranchers lined up and ready to leave, but his Mom slapped him in the back of the head and made him quit.

We all know the pee-pee dance, frequently done on the way into rest area bathrooms. It’s a little run, skip, hold your legs together number I’ve done several times myself.

We stopped at a rough-looking truck stop in New Mexico recently, lots of questionable activities going on in the parking lot. My husband didn’t like the idea that the “Paradise Motel” next door seemed to be doing a thriving business out in the middle of nowhere. We were trying to decide whether or not to park for the night when we saw this guy throw himself on the ground and start having what appeared to be a seizure.

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“Oh no, babe, that guy is having a seizure. I need to get out and help him.”

“Don’t you get out of this truck. He’s not having a seizure. He put a piece of cardboard down before he fell.”

The guy was flopping around like a fish, spinning on the cardboard. He looked to be in distress.

“I think he needs help.”

“He doesn’t need help. I’ve seen this guy before. He’s break-dancing.”

Sure enough, a couple of people on the way into the store stopped and watched the performance.

“That’s horrible. It looks like he’s in pain.”

“No. What’s horrible is the box of hats he has that he tries to sell you if you don’t give him money for his dance show. They look like he collected them all out of garbage cans. ‘Ten dollars!’”

“We’re almost two thousand miles from home and you’re familiar with the local oddities. That’s crazy.”

“No babe, that’s trucking.”

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