JayarJackson

1.                  Young Black women think that driving is a race.

Everyone has heard of the stereotypes that come with certain races and genders regarding their driving skills.  The most common victims of our profiling are probably Asian women; they change lanes without looking, thinking they’re in the only car on the road.  Older Latinos tend to drive 55 mph in the fast lane on an open freeway.  Middle aged White women seem to have too many things to do other than press the accelerator when a stop light turns green.  Don’t worry; my beautiful Nubian sisters are high on the list of bad drivers as well.  As a matter of fact, their unmistakable characteristic of driving 65 mph in a 35 mph zone is runs rampant everyday. 

When you see a midsized, 4-door sedan swerving from the far left lane to the far right lane, simply to go around 2 people driving 10 mph over the speed limit, hold on tight to your steering wheel, don’t get macho and accelerate because you have 235 horsepower under the hood, just get the hell out of the way!  And when she hits you with the icy stare that says, “now I know you’re not flooring it,” just keep looking forward, this is one road fight you don’t want anything to do with.  Yes, that Nissan Altima, Chevy Malibu, Honda Accord, or Toyota Camry is being driven by a young Black woman with the heart of Jeff Gordon.  Give her that inside lane so she’ll stop drifting off of you. 

My experiences with three older sisters prove this point.  Yes, all of them are being exposed!  The oldest exceeds the freeway’s 65 mph speed limit on a U-turn onramp daily.  While riding with the 2nd oldest, she tailgated a poor older gentleman for ½ mile while yelling, “Why don’t you drive!”  When I noticed that the man with more life experience was already exceeding the 45 mph speed limit by 10, I had to tell her, “He’s already speeding!”  To that, she yelped, “oh,” snapped out of her uncontrollable NASCARness, and laid off the gas.  Last but not least, the youngest of my older sisters was pulled over for driving 110 mph while half of my family was in the car with her on a road trip to Arizona.  After the officer took her out of the car and explained to her that exceeding triple digits on the speedometer warrants an automatic arrest, she was allowed back into the driver’s seat with a simple ticket instead.  If it were me, I would have been in handcuffs with my mother asking, “Why are you taking my baby away?”  I was left assuming she simply told him, “C’mon, you know what’s up, I’m a 28 year old Black woman, I can’t help it!”

 

2.                  With so many retired numbers growing every year in pro sports, future players will soon have to wear numbers with 3 digits.

It even happens to players that are definite Hall of Famers of their sport, destined to be enshrined with their team’s jersey and number hanging in the rafters where they made history.  Once a number is retired for a sports team to honor the accomplishments of one player, no one else can ever wear the number again so that they won’t accidentally taint the illustrious memories it evokes.  No one can imagine another player for the Chicago Bulls wearing #23 now that Michael Jordan immortalized it.  Future Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal even had to change his original #32 to #34 when he joined the Los Angeles Lakers after Magic Johnson made so many memories donning the Lakers #32 jersey. 

So with so many numbers having to be avoided by young athletes making historic plays and careers in their different uniforms, I have to wonder when the numbers will run out.  Maybe when a few thousand years have passed, and numbers 00-99 are all used up, it will be normal to see Michael Jordan XL (40th) dunking while wearing #123. 


--JJJ

1.                  Don’t try to always call a good friend for entertainment value to pass otherwise boring time, they’ll eventually catch on, and might get offended.

As everyone in the country knows, LA traffic sucks.  “What the hell is that old lady thinking?”  “When are you gonna GO??”  “Damn, there’s an entire car length between that guy and the car in front of him, the gas pedal is on the right, fool!”  In order to avoid these uncontrollable outbursts of anger, I’ve discovered that many disgruntled LA drivers that are sick of listening to the same 5 songs on the radio have chosen to call and talk randomly with friends in order to pass the 2 hours it takes them to travel the 25 miles home in rush hour.  There is a reason that LA passed the law that restricts us from yapping on the phone without a hands free earpiece. 

Sure, we may come off as if we’re so important and handling so much business that we have to constantly talk while driving, but in reality, 9 times out of 10, that important looking person sitting on Interstate 405 in his Mercedes is talking to his best friend about the last episode of “24” or how much he hates his idiot bosses at work.  If you’re this “important person” that gets the bright idea to use your friend as absorption for your babble, make sure you try to mask it or else your calls will begin to get ignored. 

I soon found out that I was the court jester that kept a few friends entertained at one point in my life.  If they’d only attempted to hide their intentions a little better, I might have not started giving them the silent treatment. 

If the same person calls you every weekday at the same time of 5:15pm, and every conversation begins with the sound of a car’s seatbelt alarm beeping, you may want to reanalyze their affection.  When the conversation seems increasingly pointless and belabored, with uncalled for interruptions from your friend inexplicably yelling “get off my ass!” when they’re not talking to you, then they’re probably venting at the Range Rover driver that thinks tailgating will move traffic.  Once 2 hours has passed and their interest in your day immediately turns to “Ok, I’ll talk to you later,” you should understand that they’re happily home and the reason your ear is hot from a cell phone being smashed against it is that you’ve just been played.  Put on your clown hat and prepare new material for tomorrow’s drive home. 

 

2.                  The worst thing you can say about another person’s car is that “it gets you from point A to point B.” 

It seems that everyone wants to drive an impressive looking car, especially us men.  We know that it can draw attention and make us look better.  Maybe we can rev the engine, blast the stereo, and speed around a few turns just to get women to look.  Every time reliability enters the conversation, the seemingly complimentary gesture sounds more like an insult telling us how ugly it is. 

Ladies, if a guy is telling you all about his car and how it has multiple features, and has power-controlled this and that, don’t try to add to the attempted bragfest with the overused, “Well, as long at it gets you from Point A to Point B, that’s great!” 

Telling an overly car-conscious guy that his new ride simply gets him from point A to point B is like telling a woman that as long as her new dress covers her butt and her chest, it doesn’t really matter that that hotter girl with the better body is wearing the same one.


--JJJ