| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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February
/ March 2006 Contest Results |
An Ant Amidst
Elephants
By Danielle Mutarelli,
New Hampshire
There’s nothing
like seeing an RV flipped onto its side in a median to really set the
tone of a road trip. Until then I’d thought this journey would be about
grooving to good tunes and watching trees roll by. Now I was beginning
to feel that this trip was going to be a little more involved.
Days before we
left to make this grand trek from Miami to Boston my husband had said,
“Man, I’m not looking forward to this trip” and I’d responded, “Why not?
It’s going to be fun.”
Granted I was
enthusiastic about leaving Miami. It wasn’t at all hard to tell my boss,
who was as chipper as a pit bull with a raging case of 'rhoids, that I
quit. And it caused me no heartbreak to leave our apartment that was as
moldy as bread in a frat house.
I was eager to
depart the Sunshine State, more aptly titled the So- Humid- It- Feels-
Like- You’re- Being- Slapped- In- The- Face- With- A- Wet- Towel- Every-
Time- You- Walk- Out- the- Door state.
I also
discovered that Miami is my number one selection for “A nice place
to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
Following in at
a close second would be Mars.
So sure, I
thought this road trip would be fun. Yet as we traveled along I-95 that
‘fun’ was quickly replaced by fear. Our first challenge on I-95 was
leaving Southern Florida alive. For a longer stretch of time than I care
to remember, we were flanked by a blue haired granny driving her monster
Town Car. She was wrestling with the steering wheel like it was a bear.
Comforting.
And on the other
side was a hunk of a Honda with more junk on the dashboard than a T.G.I.
Fridays. My guess was that for all his fringe and flare this guy didn’t
have a lick of insurance or a driver’s license.
Then of course
there were the numerous Vipers and Lamborghinis that
zipped passed us like we were a heavy smoker riding a bike with two flat
tires.
We were doing
eighty.
I tried
repeatedly to determine what part of this hellacious trip I thought
would be fun. We’d purchased the audio version of The Da Vinci Code
which I thought would be enjoyable. My husband was able to follow the
story and with each new twist revealed would mutter things like, “Ah,
interesting,” whereas I was more focused on the road and was muttering
something more along the lines of, “Ah, crap!
We’re gonna die!”
Surely the fun
was not to be had in Virginia. I never knew that eighteen wheelers could
be so big, drive so fast, and sandwich us so successfully between them.
It is not until you are surrounded by a pack of semis traveling at high
speeds that you understand what it feels like to be an ant amidst a herd
of stampeding elephants.
It was at this
point that I managed to tear my terrified eyes off the road for a second
and saw the funniest sign I’d ever seen. It was for a discount furniture
store, but some of the lights had burned out so that it presently read
“Disco n Furn u.”
I was too afraid
to laugh.
By the sheer
grace of God we made it to Boston in one piece. As I stepped out of the
car I grabbed the road map and said to my husband, “We won’t be needing
this anymore. I’m never making that drive again.”
“Why?” he asked
with a smirk. “I thought it was fun.”
I threw the map
at him.
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