Stinking Nebraskans and Their Stinking Low-Beams!

I spent some time back in Montana over the long Thanksgiving weekend.  Spending some time driving in a normal state made me realize how ridiculous drivers are in Nebraska.

In Montana, especially eastern Montana, there are a lot of deer.  A LOT OF DEER!  When you drive in the rural areas after the sun’s gone down, you have to constantly scan the sides of the road looking for any sign of movement.  I lived in Montana for most of the first 22 years of my life; I hit two different deer on two separate occasions.  If you live in Montana and you drive at night, you will almost unavoidably hit a deer.  Something that Montanans realize is that it’s a heck of a lot easier to catch the glint of a deer’s eye in the headlights if your headlight beams are on high.  Thus, people in Montana, when approaching another car at night, usually dim their headlights about 4 to 5 seconds before passing the other car.

Nebraskans (and, to be honest, Wyomingites are even more anal about this than Nebraskans) start flashing their headlights from high-to-low in an effort to get you to dim your lights at anywhere from 1/2 mile to 1 mile away.  This means these morons are flashing you at 30 seconds to 1 minute away!  Seriously!  If these old Germans have such poor eyesight that they need oncoming lights on dim at this distance, they should have their licenses taken away… not only because they are increasing the risk of roadside hazards becoming unexpected surprises, they also just annoy the CRAP out of me!

These light-flashing idiots used to get to me so bad that I would wait until I was about 4 or five seconds away before I would dim my lights just to make them mad.  Of course, this backfired, because the light-flashing nincompoops started sticking it to me.  By “sticking it to me” I mean that they would wait until the last second and then hit me with all that they’ve got… high beams, low beams, and if they got ’em, fog lights, all at once.  The blinding brightness usually lasted well after the other car passed and made me even madder.  I actually considered turning around and running the idiots off the road on more than one occasion, but doing hard time because grandma Schultz ticked me off on her way to make butterballs at church wouldn’t sit well with the wife.  Instead of tinkering with my blood pressure more than need be, I have attempted to learn to conform to the local idiotic driving patterns.

And then I went to Montana and re-experienced night driving the way it should be: safely avoiding the hazards at the side of the road.  On our return trip, it started getting dark right about the time we arrived in our local driving area… and I once again had morons flashing their lights at me from up-to a mile away.

I wanted to get this straight once and for all.  Tonight, I went to several states’ DMV websites, including Nebraska and Wyoming, to find out what the law is regarding distance for dimming headlights when approaching another vehicle.  Nebraska did not list a specific distance.  It did list a distance of 200 feet when approaching another vehicle from the rear but it didn’t list a distance for forward-approaching vehicles.  200 feet from the rear was the same distance I found on several other websites, except for the Wyoming site which put this distance at 300 feet.  The funny thing is (and I don’t mean funny in the sense of “ha ha” but more in the sense of making you want to stick a red-hot steak knife into your eyeball) the distances on the sites I visited regarding the correct distance to dim you lights when approaching another vehicle from the front ranged from 300 feet to 500 feet.  The Wyoming site stated 500 feet.

So, you might ask yourself, how long would it take for two vehicles to meet each other from a distance of 500 feet… considering a speed of about 55 mph?  Thanks for asking!  The Wyoming Driver Manual, on page 75, states… and I quote… “You should dim at least 500 feet (about four to five seconds) before meeting an oncoming vehicle.”  I kid you not!

So, let’s see if we can get Adventurer Rich’s situation all straightened out.  I have been dimming my headlights in a very legal fashion and should have increased the safety on the road (due to potential roadside hazards) in the process.  The stinking knuckleheads that blast me with all that they’ve got are, in reverse, breaking the law because they think I am breaking the law (which I’m not) and causing a danger to me and anyone in my car by  obscuring my vision with their temper tantrum… not to mention that they are tempting fate that I don’t have a temper tantrum of my own, turn around, and run their sorry butts off the road!

Let’s see if we have learned a little lesson here.  If you are driving on one of the many rural highways in western Nebraska or eastern Wyoming and you come across a gent who refuses to dim his lights at 1/2 mile away, proceed with caution.  If you get to anywhere from 10 to 4 seconds away and he then dims his lights, remember that he is acting in a completely legal fashion.  If you, at this point, decide to blast him because he didn’t dim his lights when you wanted him to (law be damned!), accept that he may very well turn around and do everything within his power to see you run off the road (which would be no more illegal or put any more life in danger than you did by blasting him with your headlights.)  And the number one thing that I hope you have learned is this: if you would even consider flashing your lights at someone when they are 1/2 mile away in an attempt to get them to dim their headlights… you need to turn in your driver’s license, Grandpa, ’cause you shouldn’t even be on the road!

Winter Oreos?

What’s the deal with this year’s “Winter Oreos”?  My wife recently bought a pack of Winter Oreos because our whole family loves nothing more than chocolaty wafers stuffed with sugar-enveloped lard.  Mmmm.  What strikes me about the Winter Oreos is the color Nabisco decided on for the lard filling.

What colors do you think of for winter?  I think, of course, of white, but the filling in an Oreo is normally white, so that wouldn’t work for a “seasonal variation.”  Blue also comes to mind (I don’t exactly know why… I think it’s because companies market winter stuff in blue; you know, like all the stupid snowman decorations with the blue hats and blue scarves… you never see snowman decorations with a scarf that happens to be a lovely shade of chartreuse.)  One color that doesn’t naturally pop into my head for winter is… red.  Nabisco has decided that red lard is a good way to represent winter?!?  Does anyone get this?  Seriously, red = winter?!?

I’m reminded of my days hunting as a young man with my father in western Montana.  Early morning, before the sun’s up, nestled in a patch of juniper awaiting the sun and the coming of the deer.  The sun peeks over the horizon, casting brilliance on the snow-covered ground but leaving the air frigid; and here come the deer.  Shots ring out and the deer scatter, leaping with unrelenting fury away from certain death… except for the one unlucky chap who takes a slug through the spine.  The hit deer falls immediately and is still.  My father and I approach the motionless, warm body.  As we approach, the large buck’s head moves ever so slightly in our direction.  The buck’s eyes, open-wide and full of fear, lock on my father and me.

“You gonna take care of him?” asks my father.

My shot is the one which struck true. I unsheathe my hunting knife and kneel beside the paralyzed buck.  I make it fast, slicing quick and hard at the throat of the deer with my sharp knife.  A flood of warmth bursts over my hand as the buck’s large eyes roll back into its head; his head relaxes as his last breath escapes his mouth in a mist of white against the cold Montana air.

I stand back and observe the scene.  The buck, almost a winter’s worth of meat for our family, lies still.  The blood from his throat slowly stains the surrounding snow crimson.  And all the while, I’m thinking to myself, “Oh, oh, oh, ice -cold milk and an Oreo cookie.  They forever go together, what a classic combination…”

Seriously… red and winter?!?  I think the folks at Nabisco are just cheap.  You know they are going to have red filling at Christmas (and probably at Valentine’s Day), so instead of having to mix up a batch of blue lard, they just started the red Christmas (Valentine’s Day) lard early and think we consumers are retarded enough that we won’t question what red has to do with winter.

Well for you, Nabisco, I am seriously questioning the red!