JOPLIN, Mo. — I don’t want you to think I’m still angry or anything, but I would support a constitutional amendment allowing certain people (people like me) to have machine guns mounted onto the front of their cars.

We were driving home from the Lake of the Ozarks on Sunday afternoon. We spent the weekend at the lake as part of my annual family reunion. By the way, it should be noted that machine guns are not allowed at our family reunions. Well, not any more.

It occurred to me, as we were driving home from the lake, that a lot of other people were driving home from the lake. It also occurred to me that many of the people driving home from the lake and therefore sharing the road with me were — to use a technical psychological term — “*&^#@&* CRAZY!!!!!”

I don’t like it when *&^#@&* CRAZY people are driving on the same road that I’m on. The first *&^#@&* CRAZY person on the road I (almost) ran into was a person on a motorcycle. Motorcycle boy was driving in front of me on the narrow two-lane road north of Lebanon when he decided, for no apparent reason, to stop his motorcycle and turn off the narrow two-lane road. The only problem was, the person on the motorcycle felt that his decision to stop his motorcycle and turn was on a need-to-know basis and apparently did not feel I needed to know his plans. Therefore, I was shocked when his motorcycle stopped moving. I also now have an imprint of the brake pedal in my car that is clearly visible on the bottom of my right tennis shoe.

It was only after I managed to stop my car just before hitting the guy on the motorcycle that he bothered to activate his turn signal which, had there been a machine gun mounted on my car, I would have blown to bits. The turn signal, I mean.

The second *&^#@&* CRAZY person sharing the road with me was driving a beige SUV with Oklahoma license plates. We were on I-44 between Lebanon and Springfield. I was in the left lane stuck between two large trucks. The two large trucks were going about 78 mph. Therefore, in order to survive, I was going about 78 mph. In the right lane there was another truck going about 65 mph. Clearly there was some traffic conflict.

I first spotted the crazy person in the SUV in my side mirror. He was in the right lane.

“Gosh, he’s going awful fast,” I thought to myself. “Surely he doesn’t think he can get by me and the truck in front of me.”

Then, the crazy person in the SUV passed me. Unfortunately, after passing me, he got stuck behind the slow-moving truck in the right lane before he could pass the truck in front of me.

“Ha, now he will have to slow down and get behind the truck behind me,” I thought.

I thought wrong. The *&^#@&* CRAZY person in the SUV, without warning, slammed on his brakes and then pulled in front of me, causing me to sink the break pedal 8 inches into the floor of my car. The crazy person in the SUV also caused me to have what could only be described as a “Mel Gibson moment.”

Had there been a machine gun mounted on my car, the whole ugly incident could have been avoided before it got out of hand.

The last *&^#@&* CRAZY person I (almost) ran into was a moron in a small white car. This moron was in the left lane but he was only going about 65 mph. There very few things that drive me crazier (Glenn Beck is one) than morons in the left lane who drive below the speed limit. When I approached the moron in the white car, I assumed he would see me in his rearview mirror and switch lanes so I could pass him.

I was wrong. The guy in the white car kept driving as if he didn’t have a care in the world. When I was forced to pass the moron via the right lane, I made a few hand gestures at him, but he didn’t seem to notice.

That’s because he was talking on his cell phone. A cell phone which, had there been a machine gun mounted on the front of the car, I could have shot right out of his hand, taking a significant portion of his ear with it.

Not that I’m still angry or anything.