On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 08:24:53 -0800, John Larkin wrote:

There are many implications to washing my car. Other people who drive
by may slow down to avoid hitting me in the street, or just to admire
my form.

Some years ago, I drove past a bevy of cheerleaders hawking their HS
fund-raiser car wash. I pulled up to the curb, and said, "Y'know, you
could make about a thousand dollars an hour if you did it topless. ;-)"
[note smiley inside quotes. ;-)] They were kind of amused, but this was
in Minnesota, so that's about as far as that idea went. )-;

That changes the timing of their lives, and of the timing of
the lives of everyone else they interact with. And those disturbances
spread around the world.

I once cleared a miles-long slowup on I-5 eastbound out of LA near the
I-10 interchange. Three or four lanes of traffic were stop-and-slow for
more than a mile, with, I'm sure, traffic piling up behind me. What had
happened was, some guy had stalled in an incredibly bad spot - I-5 goes
under an underpass, and then there's an upgrade with no room for anyone
to go around, so traffic had to neck down right there. Some guy had
stalled there and the tail end of his car was still sticking out into the
traffic lane. So, everybody had to go around, so they had to pull out, so
the next lane had to make room, and so on; voila! Traffic slow-up. Well,
as it happens, there was a very convenient pull-off there - between the
main I-5 and some on-ramp, that was a paved area big enough to park a
couple of cars and have a picnic. So, I pulled into there - everybody else
on the road, as soon as they got past, zoomed away as fast as their little
Lexuses could carry them ;-). Walked up to the guy, and asked, "So, can I
give you a hand pushing it out of the road?" He said, "Sure!" He pushes
from the driver door, and I stick my ass out into oncoming traffic, which
just happened to be a Big Rig who is watching this whole scenario, and he
waves me up and holds the spot. I might have been a little adrenalined-up
at that point, because pushing this Toyota Camry or whatever it was up
onto that turnoff felt like pushing a roller skate. ;-)

The traffic opened up so good that it was another 10 minutes or so before
I found a spot to merge in. ;-)

But I felt like I did a good thing. :-)

Cheers!
Rich
--
Elect Me President in 2008! I will:
A. Fire the IRS, and abolish the income tax
B. Legalize drugs
C. Stand down all military actions by the US that don't involve actual
military aggression against US territory
D. Declare World Peace I.