drive by creep out

we're all familiar with the drive by flirt. you're riding down the highway and a member of the opposite sex passes you in another vehicle. they smile or wink. you smile back. every now and then you engage in a little game of car tag, passing each other and exchanging coy glances while you're riding down the road. mostly it's an innocent confidence booster...a nice distraction from the long commute or the traffic or whatever. it's like the little cat and mouse games we played at recess in 4th grade only at much higher rates of speed.

but today for me, it went badly, badly awry.

i was driving down the road, minding my own business. i'd had a long day at work and school and i was pretty much exhausted. i was late getting the kids home 'cause of my evening class, so we'd stopped at mc donalds for some quick dinner. i was busy handing chicken nuggets, burgers and soda cups to the hungry mouths in the back seat and collecting the trash as they finished their food.

thats when i noticed him.

i happened to glance over and there he was, cruising along right next to me in a late model beige ford taurus. he was maybe 26 or 27 with coke bottle glasses, the remnants of teenage acne and clean cut hair and clothes. he was staring right at me. it caught me off guard, so i automatically just smiled at him. i know the drill.

but this guy didn't smile back. he just kept staring. in a split second our eyes met and i knew. there was pure evil lurking behind that geeky exterior....the components of macdonald triad littered his past, as certainly as mcdonald's hamburger wrappers littered the floor behind me. i was sure of it. when this guy was a kid, he tortured small animals and started fires just for the heck of it. behind his straight-faced stare lay the immistakable persona of a chronic bedwetter. all the telltale earmarks of the stereotypical serial killer.

the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up.

i slowed to a stop at the next red light. i was about 10th in my lane. my newly acquired stalker was only third in his. whew, i thought, too bad for him, he'd have to pull past me and then i'd be able to hang back and lose him. but he didn't. he stopped short right next to me, disregarding the line of cars honking their horns behind him. he sat there right next to me, unsmiling and staring right over at me. the seconds ticked by for what seemed like an eternity. i tried to turn up the radio and ignore his staring eyes steadily boring holes in my passenger side window, but the tension quickly became unbearable.

finally, i saw that the turn lane arrow had turned green. i almost scraped the bumper of the car in front of me as i sped from the line of cars i was sitting in over into the turn lane and away into a neighborhood where i was able to elude my would-be assailant....

yes, i was able to escape this drive by creep, but take heed, innocent citizens of dover. he's still out there...lurking...