The Bumper Gap

     The pundits go into their appearances on cable news knowing what they want to say, ready to interrupt someone making their own point.  You can see it on their faces.  Mouths want to move, words must be expressed, and no one listens.  Yet, as in the following fictional dialogue, one can think differently from someone else, but still listen, hearing and processing other viewpoints.

     A: I'm in favor of running over squirrels when they run into the street.  I don't slow down, I speed up.

     B: I don't run over squirrels or anything else.  I try to avoid that.  Getting into your car to go do errands or pick someone up, or why you're driving at that particular time, shouldn't involve a blasé  willingness to kill animals.  Think of all the things we do sitting down.  Eating dinner, receiving a blowjob, talking with someone, drinking alone, watching TV, driving, flying in a plane, going into space, planning an assassination of a terror dignitary, signing books for fans.

     A: What's your point?

     B: The act of sitting down implies a variety of possible outcomes, including committing murder, or something mundane like pouring syrup on pancakes and filling the stomach before going to work, where you'll probably also sit down, at least for some of it.

     A: Sitting down, you're suggesting, is a simple act, but also fraught with possibilities running the gamut from committing violence to getting sexual pleasure, from satisfying hunger to falling asleep in front of a TV cop show.

     B: Yes.  Sitting down also means mercy given to squirrels, dogs, children, when they enter the road.  Michel de Montaigne wrote, "Even on the highest throne in the world, we are still sitting on our ass."

     A: I understand that the person writing this piece, Vic Neptune, is sitting on his ass right now.

     B: Yes, and he avoided hitting a squirrel on Sawyer Street this morning by braking suddenly, even though a blue sedan was, and had been for several blocks, riding his tail.  Vic was driving at 34 miles per hour in a 25 zone.  A Tailgater tends to not get the impulse to ease off when the car in front of them speeds up to create distance between the two cars.  No matter how fast Vic drove, the idiot was on his ass.  When the squirrel started across the street and hesitated halfway, Vic braked, knowing the idiot would have to brake too in order to avoid a collision.

     A: I would've run that squirrel down.

     B: Yes, but I chose to not be an asshole.  The squirrel made it to where he wanted to go, the tailgater had to slow down, but within seconds he was near my rear bumper again.  He finally peeled away and was probably tailgating someone else within a minute of my last view of his blue car.

     A: You trusted the tailgater to brake when you braked for the squirrel.  Wasn't that a dangerous assumption?

     B: Maybe.  But it was quick.  My body did while my mind watched.

     A: And you were sitting down.

     B: An avoidance of recklessness in the pointless killing of a squirrel sometimes comes from a sitting position, yes.

     A: The tailgater was also sitting.

     B: Tailgaters and their potential victims are all sitting down, a position between standing and the proneness of being dead, a terminal state tailgaters make possible with their horrible driving habit.

                                                                              Vic Neptune