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Terry Marotta: Picture a person stalled halfway down an off-ramp in traffic so jammed she just knows she’ll be late for her doctor’s appointment. That was me last week. Now I'm sort of jumpy to begin with, on account of how my mother used to leap a foot in the air and scream like a banshee whenever something unexpected happened, even if it was just one of us kids walking into the room. She'd startle and then she'd scream, which of course made me scream too. Jumping and screaming, screaming and jumping: it was the story of our lives there at the Twitch and Shout Ranch—and the fact that I’m still so easily startled all these years later is something I think I’ll just have to start taking into account more, especially when behind the wheel. Because there I was last week, stuck in the slow churn of weekday traffic, sweating the sweat of maximum anxiety and wondering if I should just call the doctor’s office and say right now that I might be late. My mind darted to the cell phone resting in my lap. "Better not," I thought. Even though the cars were just about stopped and I was wearing my headset, it just seemed dumb to start looking down and punching numbers. We were still inching toward the signal that regulated our departure from this off-ramp when I noticed a man standing beside it with a sign reading "Hungry, Homeless, Sober." In traffic this slow it was for sure he and I would be within six feet of each other, and for a fair length of time too. So what was I going to do, act like I didn’t see him? There was a time I might have but that time is past, thank God. The years have slowly taught me to put myself in the other guy's shoes more, and have also lifted from me a crippling early shyness. Now I always respond when people address me. And if they ask me for money I give what I can, even keeping a couple of one dollar bills handy just for this purpose. This day though, I didn’t have so much as a quarter handy. So keeping one eye on the car in front of me, I reached down and started fishing in my purse. And just then my phone rang, so what did I do but yell and jump? And though I know better than to answer the foolish thing, its ringing alone so startled me I rolled right into the car of the woman in front of me. Who climbed out and came over. The homeless man dropped his sign and came over too. I did not come over since I was already there. What I did instead was to start hiccuping uncontrollably. "Are you…are you OK?" I finally managed to blurt. She was fine, and her car was fine too. "But it looks like your bumper's a little cracked," she added, causing the homeless man to inspect it closely, then deliver 300 expert words on just exactly how easy it would be for a good body shop to fix me right up. So here ends my little story, a true cautionary tale for me as I now recognize it to be. Because I’ve always noticed the bumper stickers reading "Hang Up and Drive." I’ve just never imagined they applied to me, with my hands-free headset and all. But now I think I’ll be doing just that: turning that darn phone clear off when behind the wheel—and maybe sparing the world just a bit more of the old twitch and shout. Write to Terry at PO Box 270, Winchester, Mass., 01890 or tmarotta@ |
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