This past weekend, as on many past weekends in the last two years, I found myself on that joyous stretch of I-80 heading east towards Indiana, just before it merges with I-294. The rich I-80/294/94 combo road is known for its three distinct traffic patterns: bad, really bad, and detouring through Gary at night is looking like the best option right now. With the lovely funnel pattern of roads forming around the south end of Lake Michigan and the continuous construction, this trio of traffic delight can even make the sturdy Midwesterner cringe. I know because, since I moved to Indiana a little over two years ago, I get to drive this delightful route often, as I am required to return to Illinois for the pleather of family events. I simply didn’t move far enough away to call-off…not that I want to.

So, there I am again, returning to home in Indiana after a family function. At this point on the road, I am just at the bad stage. The traffic hasn’t merged yet, so I am on the solo I-80, prior to the merge of I-294. There is definitely traffic (isn’t there always?), but we are moving at a respectable 55-60 mph. I was moving in the left lane, which was slowly passing cars and trucks in the middle lane. I like to keep about five car lengths between me and the car in front of me, as this stretch of road is prone to sudden stops, and I like to have time to stop Bert without swinging onto the shoulder because I didn’t give adequate time to find my brakes. From behind me comes Speed Racer. She pulls up right on my back bumper. I am certain that she must have some medical emergency to be in that kind of rush in that kind of traffic, so I turn on my right turn signal and proceed to move over a lane. She must have thought my idea was a grand idea because, just about the same time, she starts to move over a lane, but in her haste, she forgot to use her signal. In fact, she liked my lane-change idea so much that she quickly whipped over two lanes, never using her signal. I had put myself a little uncomfortably close behind a truck with my lane change, so I slowed down a little to form a bigger reaction gap. Speed (that’s the nice lady with the medical emergency) must have thought that slowing was a good idea too, because she stayed right beside me. As I looked over at her, she was waving at me. It was a strange type of one fingered wave. I thought that that was a nice gesture, so I gave her a big smile.

She must have really liked my smile, because she got really excited about it, jumping around in her seat, waving both hands. Then, I realized that she must be dancing to music on the radio, so I smiled at her again, while bopping my head to the tune on the radio. She must have been listening to some really fast dance music, because that put her into a complete dance frenzy. And she was a singing fool too! I could see her singing along to the lyrics. I was beginning to get concerned about her lack of attention to her driving, so I decided not to play along to her dance game anymore, so I cordially waved goodbye and focused on the road ahead of me to let her know I was done with our fun game. Besides, she still needed to attend to her medical emergency.

After more dancing and singing (I assume, but I didn’t look over to confirm), she finally remembered her medical emergency, so she sped up and squeezed in front of the truck in front of me, and then cut off another car to get back into the left lane. I got to watch her race up to the car in front of her and hang on their rear bumper until a break opened up in another lane, when she would whip to the next lane and ride that car’s bumper. She must have really wanted to talk to a lot of people because she was so close to the cars in front of her, she was practically in their back seats, so I’m pretty sure they could have had a conversation. Man, she wanted to talk to cars in every lane, bopping about between lanes, slowly moving up a car at a time. I got to watch this for a couple miles, as she was unable to make much forward progress. About a half mile out from the I-294 merge, she whipped into the right lane again. Right at that point, a group of three trucks must have decided that they wanted to play her dance game, because they surrounded her. Unfortunately, that didn’t allow her to get into the express lanes for the toll going into the merge. But that’s okay, because the two lanes that were open for cash pay had long lines, so she would have lots of time to dance with her trucker friends. I mused about how happy that would make her feel. I imagined her in a dancing and singing frenzy, even as the truck to her left blocked my view of her as I passed in the express I-Pass lane. It made me really, really happy. Now that’s a joyride.