Things I Don’t Tell Mother When I’m Traveling

Back in the Dark Ages, I was returning to Arizona from South Carolina.  My mother insisted I call collect (I did tell you this was a while ago) every night I was on the road, so she’d know I was safe.  I didn’t mind; it’s comforting to know alarms will go off somewhere if I drop off the radar.

My car, no surprise, had Arizona plates.  I’m driving down Interstate 20 between Columbia and Atlanta, carefree, going home, when just over the Georgia border, a car blinks its lights behind me.  Assuming it was a warning about a tire or some auto related issue, I check my gauges, make sure my tires are tracking smoothly.  Nothing seems wrong, so I trundle on down the road.

Again, the lights.  Again, I check.  Nothing.

Again, the lights.  I slow to let him pass.  He slows.  I speed up.  He speeds up.

It finally dawns on me that the bastard was trying to pick me up….on the interstate!!!!  I was dumfounded…and angry…and scared.

For miles, he played his little games, coming up next to me, moving ahead, dropping behind.

I got his license number, pulled into a rest area, and called the Georgia State Police, who told me that a trooper station was just up the road, and to pull in there if he follwed me.  He’d watched me from the other side of the parking lot, but had left before I did. 

And guess who was waiting for me just beyond the turnoff to the trooper station?  Now I was both genuinely enraged and truly frightened.  Frightened because it was obvious he would follow me until I stopped for the night.  Enraged that he thought I was so stupid as to let that happen.  And, the troopers knew his name and the make of his car from the license number.

Way back then, few people carried guns.  I knew that if I’d had a gun, I might have shot him.  I would have rolled down the window of my car while barrelling down Interstate 20….and shot him....from irrational fear.

Instead, at the next exit with lots of activity, I pulled into a gas station, got gas, and called the troopers, who told me to stay put.  The harrasser pulled in just down the way.

Eventually, a blond gorilla wearing a trooper uniform drove up, asked me where the man was, then told me to hit the road.  I never saw the harrasser again.

Nor did I tell my mother when I checked in that evening.

 So now, many, many years later, when checking in is via email, what did I not tell Mother? 

The high speed camper tire blowout just over the Texas border.  It didn’t take me more than a few seconds to realize that the noise I was hearing wasn’t merely from rough road, so I gently pulled over to the side of I-20.  And yes, the right rear tire of the camper was shredded.   

Soometimes, Mother, ignorance is bliss.