survivor

once, i was driving with my daughter on a rather large highway when she remarked "there's a lot of traffic out here today."

you know, sometimes we are in a state of mind where ordinary comments like this invoke odd responses. now i didn't say anything at the time, but that statement struck me in just such an unusual way.

i realized the phrase was a euphemism for the reality that we were neck and neck with people, all around us, piloting roughly 1.5 ton chunks of steel, glass, and rubber wheels sliding along at 70 miles per hour on this sluing, slippery ribbon of asphalt; people, that is, who were perfectly capable of making bad decisions--just like me.

not traffic. rather, people; people in control of heavy machinery. but that's not the clincher.

what struck me on that day was that those people were quite likely thinking of me and my daughter as traffic.