Interpretive Dance Driving-Fluff Yeah!

This post is a long one….

After spending a week on Plum Island, I was feeling good, feeling balanced, I had found my “writer’s groove”, hung out with my mother, visited with good friends and family, I was overflowing with gratitude, love, and confidence. It was a Full Circle journey within itself, and I was ready to move on and visit with my daughter and son-in-law at a cabin we rented in Virginia. All I had to do was drive through Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania. That’s all. Easy Peasy….

First of all. Before I go any further. I need to put it out there into Blogland that I am a New Englander through and through. Born and raised. Proud of it. Yes, I defected to California when I was 17, but when you grow up in that Northeastern cluster of teeny tiny states, you are branded. You have been claimed. Having said that…

Massachusetts drivers are THE WORST Fluffin’ drivers in the entire Fluffin’ Nation!

(The word “Fluffin’” will now be used throughout this post as a true New Englander should Fluffin’ use it.) Refer to this handy chart gotten off of the almighty internet if you need to reference some of my word usage:

Now, where the fluff were we, ah yes…fluffin’ Massachusetts and the fluffed up driving skills that are on display there.

I have now driven through many states (imagine a great Johnny Cash impersonation here). I’ve driven in California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, MIchigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska….I’ve been everywhere, man.

Congratulations Mass. You win! You fluffin’ suck at driving.

I mean really. When you are gunning it down the fluffin’ highway, twenty fluffing miles an hour above the fluffing speed limit, and you see a police car at the side of the road, do you really have to slam on your fluffin’ brakes right next to it and drop to ten fluffing miles an hour below the fluffin’ speed limit and think no one fluffing noticed? What the fluff? Come on. Not only that, but please, please, yes! Accelerate as soon as the fluffing police car is in your rear view mirror and fluffin’ floor it again! Oh, and repeat this process. Over and over, and over. Oh! and blinkers? What the fluff are those? Great way to fluffin’ drive… On to New York. Well, I’m not sure what kind of fluffin’ drugs my GPS was on, but it sent me straight into The Bronx with a capital T and B.

I believe the following flew out of my mouth…

“What the fluff was that?!?”

“If you slam on your fluffin’ breaks one more fluffin’ time, I’m gonna fluffin’ kill you!”

“You’ve gotta be fluffin’ kidding me.”

“Fluff!”

“I don’t fluffin’ believe this!”

“Unfluffingbelievable!”

“Fluff! Fluff! Fluff!”

After being stuck in New York traffic and Pennsylvania construction traffic for three hours, I now had a twelve hour drive instead of a nine hour drive and needed a little pick me up to make it to Virginia. I had lots of cold brewed coffee in the car, so no big deal.

With about five hours to go, I stopped to get gas and use the bathroom. As I was walking past the register, a row of tiny little bottles caught my eye…

Like a siren song they called me, and I slowly, hesitantly, walked toward them.

“5 hour energy.” They sang to me…

I slowly reached my hand out, and touched a wide array of colors and flavors of this strange, magical drink. I knew many people who had sampled this oddity, yet I had never tried it.

Pomegranate. “Well, it works for vodka drinks, it can’t be that bad.”

I bought it. Gave it a long look, unwrapped the protective plastic coating that unwound around and around and around, took a deep breath, and tipped it back.

What ensued was a kind of hilarity seen only by those who have experienced me overtired and up too late. I’m kind of obnoxious. And I just won’t stop. I think everything I do and say is hilarious.

So, I really need some music to accompany me on this hyperdrive I am on. I need something high energy and I need it loud! I try Led Zep. Nope. The Who. Nope. Not even Chili Peppers was cuttin’ it. I was starting to feel a bit frustrated when this line flew through my consciousness…

“In the still of the night I hear the wolf howl honey! Sniffin’ around your door…”

Now, if you listened to big haired rock and roll in the eighties, don’t tell me that the next lines aren’t flying through your head right now! and then, “Here I go again on my own…going down the only road I’ve ever known…” (I know you know what’s next.)

Yes! Oh yes I did.  Whitesnake met every need I had. This amazing, misogynist album had me singing at the top of my lungs, and hammering on my steering wheel. This album set off a chain of events in my car that I did not predict.

Next!

ACDC (she was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean….)

Next!

Def Leppard (Rise up, gather round, rock this place to the ground…I know you’re singing along…All you need is the opening, “Gunter glieben glauchen globen” and it all comes flooding back.)

I was back in high school, with my friends, blasting truly awesome, sometimes truly terrible music.

This one’s for you Kris and Sally….

Friends, boyfriends, Budboys, basements, parties in the woods, railroad tracks, lakes; an endless string of memories made me laugh and laugh in that car. Memories of the most epic air guitar frenzies. My brothers would go all out. I mean, they would work up a dance sweat with that air guitar!

I tried it, that and air drumming which comes in really handy while driving.

I suck at both.

I play an amazing air cowbell, though. I rock that air cowbell!

After going through all of the 80’s rock albums I had, I still had a few hours to go. There was nothing to do but bust out my 80’s playlists that I had made when I was directing Footloose at my local highschool.

I played little ditties about Jack and Diane, those two American kids growing up in the heartland, joined in Tommy and Gina’s despair while he worked on the docks and she worked that diner all day, I was too young to fall in love, and I was dancin’ with myself….

Interpretive Dance Driving. It’s a thing. Yeah, I do that…and I do it really, really well.

I was in deep. I mean, the ending of Neil diamond’s “Coming to America” when he and a chorus are chanting, “Today! Today! Today!” straight into Sister Christian…Oh my god. We’re talking majorly epic interpretive dance driving happened. That drum beat build up, bringing you right along into an exultant, “You’re motorin!  What’s your price for flight!” (Okay. What the hell is with those lyrics. They make zero sense.) I was crazed!

Then I noticed the guy in the car behind me.

He was totally copying me! Every arm thrust, every head toss, he was matching me move for move! I tried messing with him, doing really weird stuff. He stayed right with me.

We danced together for a few songs, then he started exiting. I waved goodbye. He thrust his fist in the air as he drove off to the left.

I never knew your name. But we shared a moment. We bonded. Hard.

Fluffin’ Amazing.