Driving While Eating
The Lessons of Driving Hungry
In plainest terms, I drive a lot,
the driver's seat is almost home,
And whilst I drive I’m mostly fixed
on navigating roads alone…
Except in certain cases, though,
a soul must be forgiven when,
the plight of mortal needs portends,
a small bit of befuddlement.
On such an odd occasion, once,
I’d driven for a dreary span,
from points out in the upper plain
before a nagging need began.
The gurgling, gouging, gnawing bite
of hunger in the empty realm
of epigastric vacancy
while at my highway schooner’s helm,
Alarmed me to the need to stop,
and procure some vi’ttles soon,
before my paunch went caving in,
and cause pyloric parts to swoon,
I’ll note that I was in a race,
with no one but my need to brag,
So, I could not abide a meal,
that did not come inside a bag.
I spotted yon’ a telltale sign,
A gilded letter in the air,
which being near the highway ramp,
referred me to the restaurant there,
I swerved through angered drivers, then
and did as anyone else would do,
I trusted my enteric health,
to stuff procured in that drive through.
I yelled my order out into,
some unseen microphone device,
to wait forever in a line,
to get my grub and pay the price.
Ages may have passed therein,
kingdoms rose and fell around,
but once that food was in my truck,
this drivin’ man was highway bound!
And squeeling all the tread away,
from my old, wearied tires, I
went galavanting to the ramp,
prepared to eat, and drink, and fly.
A master at a craft, be sure,
has learned the delicate affair,
of handling tools within his craft,
with expertise, with style, and care.
Who eats at high velocity,
can scarce afford a slip at speed,
a surgeon’s stable hand you want,
a sixgun slingers haste, you need.
By simple dint of courtesy,
the fries are placed in such a spot,
that reaching with the right hand down,
one finds them greasy, blazing hot.
Not one to feign at scalding food,
I did engage with fearless scorn,
to chew the spongy, greasy fries,
Fie, every deep frier ever born!
This was no challenge to the skills
I had amassed for years before,
French fries loaded in my mouth,
one hand to steer, gas pedal to floor.
Oh, when that wicked burger rose,
to make my fond acquaintance full,
I noted that the wheel began,
of its own will to turn and pull,
leaving off the would-be bite,
I steered to center my old truck,
and hard upon my knees I kept
that sneaky steering wheel quite stuck.
Now returning to that bite,
which taunted me with fragrance, fine,
I focused on that morsel, so,
I weaved across the center line!
So, putting down the burger, I
with hasty jolt of reflex seized,
the steering wheel so hard and fast,
that all about was burger greased!
Grumbling, as I often do,
because the wheel had taunted sore,
I reached to grab my burger, when
that cheeky wheel, it tugged once more!
I grabbed with force that vicious wheel
with fervor and intensity
“You stay yourself, as I demand,
and cease this act of perfidy!”
That chastised truck retained my course,
and peace, I thought that I had won,
“A little firmness sets the score,
a stern rebuke and the devil’s done.”
Returned, I, then to bliss in bread,
that lovely bit of flattened beef,
“Oh, finally I get to eat!”
An end was near to peptic grief!
At moments like this men are wise
to bear their grief with tempered cool,
for even as I reached to bite,
The weaving wheel played me the fool.
“Wretched, rebel, metal beast!
Why do you do these things to me?
Now straighten for a moments time!
A truce, a truce! Cease rivalry!”
I’d tossed the burger free this time.
It lay in ruin upon the seat,
There a bun, and there a pickle,
yonder lies the greasy meat.
I reached a tad toward my prize,
and felt the truck pull hinter ways,
and drawing back the wheel discerned
it acquiesce to my cold gaze.
“See here, you fiendish, foul, gas hog,
I’ll feed you to the scrap yard, yet!
Just one more tug whilst I am fed,
I swear by Ford, you’ll soon regret!”
I reached about with arcing paw
to reacquire my poor lunch
who being flung, was far and wide
and o’re the console I did hunch,
Ah, and did my pick up swerve?
No, no, no, that would not do.
My blessed rusty bucket tried,
a different trick, with something new.
See, as I swung my knee about
to reach my messy drive-through swill
my foot touched down upon the brake
and then a jolt and screech, quite shrill!
The brake had, in that moment, clenched
(all by itself) so very tight
that all my food flew wild and free
and set my gas soaked mood alight!
“Ill mannered, third rate, low rent, waste!
Unwieldy, vile, old rusty thing!”
I shouted at that mindless car,
as if to some malicious being.
I kept my pick up at a stop,
while using language, dark and coarse,
and retrieved my wayward grub,
crammed it in the bag with force.
While preaching some unkindly verse
unto the lifeless shell about,
a stranger with a worried face
pulled up and watched me fume and shout.
Afella’s sometimes slow to catch
the fullest weight of moments shared,
thus, I was slow to recognize
The passer-by; both shocked and scared.
The guy in some well kept sedan,
had pulled along to check my state,
and saw me ranting, death and ruin,
like some ungodly reprobate.
When pride has scampered far afield
a bit of grace will have to do,
I tried a weak and blushing smile,
and then a thin “How do you do?”
He knit his brow and nodded slow,
Then said some words I could not hear,
Then punched his gas and drove away,
I waited ’til he disappeared…
I looked down at the mess I’d made,
and thought about the sight I’d been,
and being once enflamed with rage,
now felt the tugging of a grin.
“I could have stopped a while.” I thought.
“A needful rest would have been fine,
This good ol’ truck just did its job,
The mindlessness was fully mine.”
I drove a bit and came to rest,
in yet another lot somewhere,
ordered up another meal,
and ate that awful food, right there.
Funny what you think of when
you’re not compelled to race and vie
against a clock that doesn’t tell
what years you live or time you die.
See, sometimes we are prone to blame,
the elements around us for
the careless ways we navigate
our rapid cruise between the shores.
And blaming isn’t just the act
of shunting off deep seated strain,
It’s blinding us from taking care,
when steering through life’s twisting lane.
So, if you drive a lot, my friend,
or even if you do not so,
Be careful how you grasp the wheel,
and mindful with the blame you throw.
Drive Life Safely, Folks.
