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Here's the deal:
Think of our great nation <-----(note patriotic, Country-First type italics!) as a car. No, a minivan. Yeah, that's real all-American. A minivan. Nice one. With all the options including the DVD player and the refrigerator/drinks dispenser. Beautiful, complicated machine, top-of-the-line, including V-8 engine, mag wheels, dual carbs, the works.
We, the passengers, get to ride in it. We don't know exactly where we're going, or how we're getting there, but we get to holler directions at the driver, who occasionally listens, but more often not. Still, the drinks dispenser hasn't run out, and the DVD player works fine, although we're always bickering about what to play next. (For a long time now, a few of our fellow-passengers have hogged the remote and we're on a steady diet of Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, and Bruce Willis.)
Every four years, we stop at a rest stop and get a chance to swap drivers. We have two drivers. Neither is entirely satisfactory.
Driver A is not so much of a driver as he is a mechanic. When he's driving, we tend to drive pretty cautiously. We rarely exceed the speed limit, we stay on the main roads, and the driver occasionally pulls over and tells us we're not going to get back on the road until EVERYONE'S seat belt is fastened, and yes, that means you, too. No, you can't hang your head out of the window and stop making obscene gestures at other drivers or we'll never get back on the road. We hardly ever get to stop at McDonalds when Driver A is driving; mostly we stop at farm stands and small cafes that serve food that's good for you. And everyone gets a fair share, no extra desserts to the front-row passengers, who feel cheated because, after all, they are the front-row passengers and should get extras. Some of our fellow-passengers worry that Driver A is gonna confiscate some of the DVDs, too, although all he's done so far is to forbid playing some of them while the kids are awake.
We seem to spend more time and money on maintaining the minivan than on actually driving, sometimes. Driver A pulls over a lot to fiddle with the engine, check the fluid levels, change the wiper blades, listen to the timing, stuff like that. We stop at every car wash and Jiffy Lube we pass, it seems like. We hardly get anywhere, at least that's what some of our fellow-passengers complain. What's the good of having a V-8 if you putt along at 55 mph with everyone passing you?
So a few rest stops ago we got tired of all that, and swapped off to let Driver B take the wheel. Driver B promised he'd "get everything she could give" out of the minivan. He knows all about NASCAR and has really cool aviator shades and lots of logos from oil companies and auto supply companies all over his expensive leather jacket so he must know a lot about driving, right?
Well, we peeled out of that rest stop leaving an awful lot of rubber on the road, but Driver B said not to worry, the tires could take a lot more than that. We hit the fast lane and never looked back. We stopped at every Mickey D's, Domino's and KFC we passed and loaded up on Extra-Large Family Packs of pizza, burgers, fried chicken, apple pie, and HUGE cups of soda. Driver B would just roll down the windows and we'd throw out the used bags and wrappers and cups whenever it got a little funky back here. And there were no more complaints from the front row passengers because they ALWAYS got extras, even if sometimes the people in the back just got the breadsticks and fries and such. Cold.
No more stops at Jiffy Lube, no more long waits while the fluids got topped up-- we just haven't added any. We pass everything on the road and hang heads out the window and make "bite me, sucker" gestures at other drivers and flip the bird at radar speed traps and have all kinds of rude fun.
But some of us have been worried. We stuck with Driver B the last couple of rest stops, but the minivan was starting to make a funny noise, and every once in a while the whole thing starts to judder and shake, and those of us in the middle seats have suggested we pull over at the next Qwikstop or Pep Boys and see about a tuneup, but we got shouted down. Lately it seems like everyone who isn't glued to the latest action flick on the DVD is looking worried, especially after that last blowout, when Driver B assured us that it's just fine to ride on the rims, and ignore those sparks.
We're at the rest stop again. The minivan isn't looking so hot. Lots of dents. The windshield is cracked, there's smoke pouring from under the hood, the tires are but a memory and the rims are bent. The drinks dispenser is empty and the DVD has developed an annoying habit of skipping and sticking at the bloodiest fight scenes in the action flicks. At least one of the tailpipes is dragging on the pavement and the muffler's got a hole the size of Rhode Island in it. When we turn, the whole thing shimmies. The back is full of trash and cold french fries and ketchup spills.
A lot of us want to turn it back over to Driver A, even though we know that's gonna mean a long and expensive series of stops for repair and maintenance. We won't get far. We won't go fast. We'll have to clean out the back and fasten seat belts. We might have to watch old Nova episodes and Ken Burns miniseries for a while. Still, even some of the front row passengers worry that if we hand the keys back to Driver B and take off down the road, honking and speeding and making for the next KFC, we might be sorry.
But there's a sizable contingent of our fellow-passengers who want to do just that.
What do you say, seatmates?
automotively,
Bright
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