Mike Pound: Texting and driving is -------

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September 1, 2010

By Mike Pound news@joplinglobe.com The Joplin Globe Wed Sep 01, 2010, 09:06 PM CDT

Moron.

That’s the first word that came to mind when I finally figured it was safe to pass the guy in the compact car ahead of me Wednesday morning on Fourth Street.

I was heading to work and opted to take Fourth Street, off Range Line Road, to get to the Globe. I don’t always take Fourth Street. Sometimes I take Langston Hughes-Broadway. I used to love to drive on Langston Hughes-Broadway because I would pass both Lumpy’s Barbecue and Hackett Hot Wings. For some reason, driving past both Lumpy’s and Hackett’s always made me feel good. I would drive by Lumpy’s and think of ribs and brisket, and I would drive by Hackett’s and think of wings and fried catfish.

Of course, Floyd and Jacqueline Hackett moved their restaurant over to Main Street a couple of years ago, but still, driving on Langston Hughes-Broadway makes me feel good.

But Wednesday morning, there seemed to be a lot of traffic on Newman Road heading toward Langston Hughes-Broadway, so I opted to do a Robert Frost and take the “road less traveled,” which happened to be Fourth Street.

I was driving in the inside lane, and the guy driving the compact car ahead of me was in the outside lane. The guy in the compact car was going well under the speed limit, which was fine by me. What wasn’t fine by me was that as I was closing in on him and about to pass him, the guy began to steer his car into my lane.

Of course, I did what any red-blooded American male driving a car would do: I pulled out a gun and fired off a couple of rounds.

Ha. I joke. Everybody knows that red-blooded American males nowadays used rocket-propelled grenade launchers when driving.

Ha. Again I joke. What I did was slow down and try to figure out if the guy driving the compact car was either:

A: Drunk.

2: Wanting to change lanes but too lazy to use his turn indicator.

After a minute or two, the guy in the compact car slowly moved back into his lane, and I hit the gas to get around him.

As I passed the guy in the compact, I glanced into his open window and saw him hunched over his steering wheel, with his cell phone resting on the steering wheel. He was using both hands to — wait for it — text.

That’s when the word “moron” popped into my head. Well, that’s not true. Before the word “moron” popped into my head, a few other words that I used as nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives popped into my head. Then the word “moron” popped into my head.

I thought, for a second, about slowing down and letting the guy pass me again so I could get his license plate and then — as the hip street folks say — “drop a dime on him.” Well, hip street folks who used to appear on the TV show “Starsky and Hutch” would say “drop a dime on him.” Most folks today just say “call the cops.”

But then I figured I would probably waste my time and the valuable time of a police officer if I called to report a guy who was being a moron. I mean, if being a moron was a crime, there wouldn’t be anyone left in Congress.

So I drove on down Fourth Street a bit, pulled into a parking lot, got out of my car and pulled out my rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

“Text this,” I said to the guy in the compact car as I launched a grenade in his direction.

OK, I didn’t really do that.

But I wanted to.

Text Only

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Mike Pound: Texting and driving is -------

Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr wants the city to distribute weather radios to all Joplin homes that don’t have one. That’s 11,000 radios. Do you think that’s a good use of $300,440?

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