Mike's Awkward Adventures #1

I started to drive to school today, and headed for the interstate because it's quicker than going the other way. Normally there's not very much traffic on the 805 at that time of day. This is partly because there's never a whole lot of traffic heading north, and partly because I leave for school at around noon. Anyway, today I am heading into the 805 onramp and the right-hand lane is pretty full... like so full that there wasn't a whole lot of room to merge. So I basically had to drive kind of aggressively and squeeze in front of someone. He was kind of a jerk about it too, not wanting to let me in and flashing his lights at me and everything. Once I finally get in the right lane, I notice the guy in front of me is flashing his lights too. That seemed kind of weird, but not so weird as the high concentration of motorcycle cops in front of us and behind us. This whole lane was acting strangely... everyone flashing their lights and none of them going the full speed limit, even though all the other lanes were zooming by us.

That's when I saw the hearse. Just behind the cavalcade of motorcycle cops was a lovely all-white hearse, followed by a lovely all-white limo, followed by several other cars, all flashing their lights. Then me. With a groan I looked into my rearview mirror, only to see several more cars flashing their lights, followed by another cavalcade of motorcycle cops.

I had aggressively merged my way into a funeral procession, and had split them right down the middle. As soon as I realized this, I looked for a way to jump out of that lane, but the traffic to my left had become too heavy. I thought about just getting off at the next random exit, but mine was only a little ways away. So we continued in this way: a police escort, the deceased, some mourners, me, additional mourners, additional police.... we continued in this way for about 3 miles. I briefly wondered if maybe I should start flashing my lights just to try to fit in with the crowd, but I decided against it for two reasons. First, if they knew I wasn't part of their group then they'd be even more pissed at me for being a poser. Second, if they DIDN'T know I wasn't part of their group, they'd get worried when I eventually took the wrong exit and got the hell out of there.

So finally I found a space in the lane to my left and got out of line, but my trouble was not over yet. I was still about even with the middle of the funeral procession, but now the speed of the traffic in front of me was not any faster than the speed of the procession. The procession was like 15 cars long, so I had to jump about 7 cars' lengths forward to get around them. This would have been fine had we not been only about half a mile away from my exit by then. So basically I had a moving screen on my right, I was pinned in by the traffic in front of me, and I had to exit in about 30 seconds. I calculated that if I gunned the engine then I might be able to zip left, go around the car in front of me, zip back right, race forward to pass the procession, zip right and just make the exit... assuming I was driving a Ferrari and not my old busted Corolla with the check engine light on.

So, I just bit my lip and did the only thing that I could think of. I turned on my signal and AGGRESSIVELY MERGED BACK INTO THE FUNERAL PROCESSION, then out onto the offramp. I take comfort in the knowledge that the spirit of the deceased was probably watching me go through all of this, and understood what was going on from my point of view. That way he'll only think I'm an idiot and not a jerk, and probably won't haunt me.