Random Bullets of Driving People Crazy

• You know how when you were little and your brother told you not to touch him and you stood over him with one finger out, going, "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!"? It still works.
• I got a speeding ticket, I think too close to the last one for me to do traffic school and wipe that one out. Speed traps suck. As do long and boring stretches of freeway through farmland. As do cruise control buttons that turn themselves off at random times, which cause you to rely on your own lead foot instead. Gah.
• My neice is also driving, or actually learning to drive, and she got to drive the car over to my parents' tonight. So when they arrived my nephew came over and immediately told me about her driving and started giving her a hard time. She was just standing there taking the teasing (we're a pretty rough teasing family) and I was teasing her and I thought all was normal, and my brother (their dad) came in and immediately ripped nephew a new one, saying any rude comments like this were way outta line. I swear that my neice did not look upset until he started saying she was upset, and then off went the waterworks. But it felt to me like how when they were just learning to walk, and if they fell down and thought someone was watching them, they would scream as if in pain, looking for some attention, but if they didn't know you were keeping an eye on them they'd just get up and keep running. So I called my brother out on it, pointing out all the teasing I got about driving for at least the first 10 years I was doing it, and all the shit we gave the other neiece, and how nephew was just doing exactly what the entire family did all the time and he shouldn't really get singled out for it. I don't know if that was a good thing to do, or if it would change anything, but this seems to be my latest bit of troublemaking: loudly pointing out where they only think they are being consistent or fair.
• Refsuing to get in the car when my dad is going to be driving would be another troublemaking moment. He needs to have his liscence taken away; he has gotten too absent-minded to be safe any more. We have a big family culture of "respect the elders and never contradict them in any way" so pointing out any of their frailties in a public way or "making a scene" by continuing to hold to a stand after being told to drop it really goes against the grain --- everyone gets silent and starts looking away and at the ground or something.
• Of course, staying on the driving thing, this is coming years too late --- I shouldn't have ever gotten in the car with my dad for most of my childhood and teenage years, before the AA, but a) I was too young to really even figure out what was going on much less b) make that type of stand while still living in their house.
• When my sister and I went to the mall today, I picked her up at her place and she took her house key, but not the apartment gate complex key. As she explained, she never gets picked up by someone else, so she didn't think of getting the car gate opener and has no clue even where the pedestrian gate key is in her place. So when I brought her back I idled outside the gate until someone else pulled in and used their clicker thing. That's some great security. On the other hand, the last time I went to the mall with her we lost my car and had to wait until the lot started to clear out after hours to realize we were in the wrong lot. So this was an improvement. And of course I gave her a hard time about this ---- she's been teasing me about losing the car at the mall for years now.
• Oh and breaking the car-and-annoyance theme of this post, this is so cute: I went out to dinner with mom and dad last night and my mom was saying she had pictures of me in her purse --- and she pulls out three or four of my graduation pictures, of me being hooded and shaking hands with the chancellor. She's been showing them off to all her friends and everyone who says anything even remotely relevant ever since graduation, just like someone with new baby pics (not to infantilize me too much over here). Anyway, that just made my day. I think everyone should show off pics of me graduating, there should be dancing in the streets, a parade with showers of rose petals, you name it, I'm all over this. The more we celebrate this and see it as a big deal, the better. I wouldn't even be averse to a national holiday, just to float an idea or two, although really we wouldn't have to go all-out with the roses thing every year.
• Oh yeah and it appears that everyone in my family goes to bed at 10 pm, even in the summer and even on a Sat. Sigh. It's pretty quiet over here.