The Early Meeting

I got a call last week from Sheila, trying to set up a March 7th meeting of a committee I serve on at the local hospital. It was an important meeting, so despite being offended that someone would be inconsiderate enough to schedule it at 6:30 a.m.—that’s right: 6:30 in the morning—I agreed to attend. I should have known this was a bad omen.

The first problem occurred Monday night when my best efforts to get a good night’s sleep to catch up from a short night on Saturday went in the tank. I hit the bed just after 10, and after talking to my son for a few minutes on the phone I turned my attention to sleeping. Try as I might, I couldn’t sleep until sometime around 11:30. Just after 1:30 I awoke: A little intestinal distress. That was resolved in a half-hour, but by then I was awake. I lay there for a while, and realized that I wasn’t going to sleep any time soon, so I got up and headed into the living room, turned on the TV and lay down on the couch. It probably didn’t help that I kept thinking how close 5:30 was getting with every passing minute. Not long after that an alarm on my laptop computer sounded, alerting me to the presence of a virus. I guess viruses don’t pay attention to the time of day. I made my way across the room in the nearly-dark and searched with my fingers for the button to turn the speakers on the computer down, turned the speakers down, went back across the room and lay down again. I finally dozed off after 3:00. Too good to be true. About 20 minutes later, the alarm that I had disabled by turning off the speakers sounded again, shocking me awake from a deep-but-short sleep. In the dark I had used the wrong button. I didn’t make that mistake a second time, but I was awake again. Finally, I did get back to sleep sometime after 4:00, and probably got another hour when my wife shook me awake. It was 5:30.

With only about three hours of sleep behind me, I was surprised that the getting-ready process went as well as it did. I showered, shaved, dressed, got my stuff together and headed out the door 17 minutes before the meeting was to begin. Since the hospital is 10 minutes away, I was in good shape.

Or so I thought. We’d had some snow overnight and it had covered my car windows with a nice layer of ice. Getting ice off windows isn’t a problem, it just takes a little time, and I didn’t have a lot of it. Finally I headed out with 13 minutes left. I was in good shape!

The best route takes me on a 4-lane road for a couple of miles, and then I turn down an access road for Sam’s and some other commercial establishments which connects to the rest of the route I needed to follow. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Right in front of me, at 6:25 a.m.—that’s right: 6:25 in the morning—was a Drivers Education car with a student driver behind the wheel. The access road is two lanes until you get very near the intersection and the student driver was obeying the 25 mph speed limit. Really obeying the speed limit. When we got through the intersection, I was headed to the right lane for my upcoming right turn and the student driver stayed in the left lane. “This is good,” I thought. But, no. He has now decided to get into the right lane and puts his turn signal on. I then made what was a serious mistake: Being a nice guy. I slowed down to allow him to move over in front of me. (I reasoned that I would provide a good example for him and the student in the back seat, and that the instructor would likely praise me for being a considerate driver.) But he doesn’t change lanes, he just keeps getting slower and slower. Finally, he gets into the right lane just before we reached the stoplight at the next intersection, which has just turned red. Well, I’ve already seen enough of this kid’s driving to last me a lifetime, but the recognition that he and I are headed the same direction finally dawned.

In Virginia, as in most states, you can turn right on red after stopping. The kid must have thought you had to actually park the car, because even though there wasn’t another car in sight anywhere he sat there almost until the light turned green. He then eased out into the merge lane, ever so slowly, with me hanging back in the main traffic lane, which was my second nice-guy mistake. More precious seconds elapsed as I waited for him to change lanes, which he didn’t do until the merge lane ran out. He then proceeded to go less than the 35 mph limit until my next turn. I fully expected him to continue straight up the avenue, but no, he, too was turning left. Well, you can imagine what happened then: Waited too long at the stop sign, even though there were no cars on the road, pulled out, and went under the speed limit for the rest of the way until my next turn. Blessedly, he went straight; I turned left, and made the meeting with one minute to spare. Fortunately, things got better after that.

I still don’t know why any self-respecting driving instructor is out that early. Maybe it’s so that the students don’t snarl traffic later in the day when normal people are out in large numbers.

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