The Dance of Death
You've probably seen the Dance of Death: the driver of a car pulls out, without signaling, to pass a tractor-trailer. But once alongside the truck, inexplicably, horrifyingly, he matches speed with it and cruises along next to it, mile after mile, a spectacular reminder to all nearby that half the population is below median intelligence.
Does he not ponder the consequence of the slightest mistake? Does he not feel the turbulence conspiring against his steering? Does he not, just for a moment, hope to see the rays of tomorrow's sunrise?
No, he does none of these things; instead he careens down the highway, locked in this horrible dance, doomed to defeat without his opponent noticing his presence: an ant to the truck's boot, a lifeboat to its tsunami, George McGovern to its Richard Nixon.
You hang back, plotting a sudden yet perfect maneuver to avoid the fiery mass of molten metal, like Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder. You plan what you will say to the investigators: He must have been suicidal, officer. It's as if he wanted to die and take us with him.
Eventually, the trucker speeds up, or slows down, or gets the hell off the road, and our friend calmly, slowly drifts back to the right lane without signaling. As you pass him, you can't resist looking, to see what sort of fellow this could be. Regret sets in – you oughtn't have looked! – as you read the sign in the window: “Baby On Board.”
