Life looks different from the right side of the car. It's slower, somehow. Both your hands are free. You can eat a taco, light a cigarette, make a phone call, take a picture, close your eyes, fiddle with radio knobs, take off your jacket, write things down. It's a low-pressure job. Less observation-intensive than driving. You might be called upon to clean a pair of sunglasses, uncap a soda, adulterate a cup of coffee, change a CD, distribute dipping sauces, or, in rare and extreme cases, read directions. Otherwise, yours is a passive role.
I am an excellent passenger. Duties include distributing the contents of fast food bags, changing radio stations, singing, finding more comfortable positions, and pointing out when other people have their blinkers on for no apparent reason. I also have good parking karma, which is a demonstrated ability to find good parking spaces in non-standard parking situations, such as unusually crowded parking lots, concert venues, and along downtown streets. I credit this parking karma to the fact that I have been a non-driver for so long--I have reduced my carbon footprint, avoided accidents and tickets, and never contributed to traffic; I am therefore entitled to find a good parking space for whoever is driving me around. It's the least the universe can do.
I have had great times as a passenger. I once composed a six-page speech on my way up to Seattle for my father's fiftieth birthday party. I once created a sign that read "Your blinker is on!", which I used to inform other freeway drivers that their blinkers were on, even if they weren't. I witnessed my best friend, fed up with an argument my sister and her then-boyfriend were having, fling herself up against the rear window of my parents' minivan in a spirited imitation of a squashed fly. I once helped smuggle Tylenol with codeine across the Canadian border. All of this while other people were driving.
I feel, in short, as if I have hogged all the passengering. It's time to let other people eat tacos.
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