"We'll Call Him 'Bait'"
My dad liked a car with a lot of power. His last one was this Dodge Magnum with the 5.6 liter hemi. Stomp on the accelerator, and you’d be thrown back in your seat. Once, when driving the car myself, anxious to get around the slow car in front of me, annoyed with the car crowding my left flank who would never pass, I tromped the gas, moved into the left lane, and looked down to find myself doing over 100 mph. The Magnum accelerated so effortlessly, I had no idea I was going that fast.
A fast car for a man who liked to go fast.
Except that like the rest of us, my dad had an aversion to tickets. His normal M.O. was to drive about 8 miles over the speed limit, until he found someone going faster. Then keeping a good distance between that car and his, he’d accelerate, not quite matching that car’s speed. He’d look over, and say, “Bait.” The theory was that any highway patrol car lying in wait would go after the faster car with the healthy lead. The practice seemed to work well.
Yesterday morning, my room-mate and I were heading to work. I was in the left hand lane, doing 68 mph in a 60 mph hour speed zone. A little white car sped up from the center lane and on around me. I said to Susan, “We’ll call him bait.” Being plenty comfortable at my 68 mph in rush hour traffic, I did not speed up. We hadn’t gone a mile, when a patrol car turned on his lights.
“Who is after? Me? Or Bait?” I asked my room-mate as I moved from the far left lane to the center lane in case a.) it was me, or b.) the patrol car needed that lane. When the patrol car moved from the center lane into the left lane, zoomed around me, speeding toward the little white car, the answer to my question became obvious.
“Bait.”
A fast car for a man who liked to go fast.
Except that like the rest of us, my dad had an aversion to tickets. His normal M.O. was to drive about 8 miles over the speed limit, until he found someone going faster. Then keeping a good distance between that car and his, he’d accelerate, not quite matching that car’s speed. He’d look over, and say, “Bait.” The theory was that any highway patrol car lying in wait would go after the faster car with the healthy lead. The practice seemed to work well.
Yesterday morning, my room-mate and I were heading to work. I was in the left hand lane, doing 68 mph in a 60 mph hour speed zone. A little white car sped up from the center lane and on around me. I said to Susan, “We’ll call him bait.” Being plenty comfortable at my 68 mph in rush hour traffic, I did not speed up. We hadn’t gone a mile, when a patrol car turned on his lights.
“Who is after? Me? Or Bait?” I asked my room-mate as I moved from the far left lane to the center lane in case a.) it was me, or b.) the patrol car needed that lane. When the patrol car moved from the center lane into the left lane, zoomed around me, speeding toward the little white car, the answer to my question became obvious.
“Bait.”