What a Weirdo
May 4, 2001
7:18 a.m.
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800 words    So I was driving down the street the other day--maybe Tuesday, maybe Monday--and the traffic was moderate for Columbus, meaning it moved along but there were several cars trying to get wherever their drivers were going. Work loomed ahead. I was still in my little funk about missing my deadline. I flipped channels incessantly on the radio, trying to find something I actually wanted to listen too. You get the picture, right? It was early in the morning, and I was not in the most positive of moods. So I'm driving. And I'm looking at people as I go. I remember an old guy in a pickup smoking a cigarette because he had this red hat on at an old-man angle and a bristly mustache that looked like a petrified caterpillar on his upper lip. Mothers took their kids to school. Business people moved along toward town. Lots of people--all of them very stoic, very laid back, and professional to a T. I came to a stoplight. A quick glance in the rearview mirror told me a car was coming up behind me. Movement caught my eye. It was a man--probably mid-thirties, certainly no younger than thirty. He wore a white dress shirt with a collar and a thin tie. His hair was cut in a burr, with the very front slightly longer and hanging in a tiny peak over his forehead. He wore cheap sunglasses. But what really caught my eye was how he was dancing. And singing. You've seen the kind, right? Or actually, maybe you haven't. Maybe it's just so cliché that it's not done. I mean, the guy was singing and moving around, grooving to the left, grinding to the right, and doing the turkeywalk thing with his neck as he quite obviously bellowed words to whatever song he was listening to. First I laughed at him. What a weirdo, I thought as I settled in to watch. Other folks were watching by now, too. But he either didn't notice or didn't care, because he kept dancing and singing. And so I looked around at the other people in line. Suddenly they seemed so ... I don't know ... they seemed so ... tired. The light turned green, and I went ahead. The guy followed, slowing his dance down a bit in order to concentrate. He turned off at the next little intersection. My radio played--probably Creed at that point. Does the radio play anything else? Suddenly I realized wanted to be that guy who was dancing in his car. What the heck, eh? He's the only one on the road that looks like he's having any fun. And so I quickly considered taking a little grind to the right or doing the Wayne's World head bob for a bit. I didn't do it, of course. That would be undignified. But I couldn't get the idea out of my mind. Why are we afraid to be open to people? Well? That's obvious. I didn't want to dance in my car because I don't want anyone else to think "What a weirdo" as I pulled up next to them. Get real, okay, Ron? (I'll leave it to you as to whether a hundred people together on a road heading to a place that many of them don't want to actually go to is more weird than a guy dancing in his car). So I didn't dance. Well ... I didn't really dance. Kind of. At the next stoplight I let my mind focus on the music, and my toe might have bounced just a little. And, well, yeah, my finger did that dance thing--you know, point it out, bring it in. Point it down, bring it in again. And the music played. And my finger did its thing. It was all underground, though. All under the level of the cardoor. Very covert. I'm certain no one thought "What a Weirdo." (No heckling from the peanut gallery here, okay?) But even at this, I felt better. My finger bounced around and the drums played, and I felt my heart grow lighter and my energy come up. So I let it bounce a little more. The light turned green. I pulled away and made my way into the rest of my day, thanking whatever powers that be for the guy in the cheap sunglasses. Have a great day.   Geeze, Ron's on his way to the looney bin Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"Apply yourself to the basics and progress will follow." My Fortune |
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