When it came time for me to learn how to drive, my mother taught me. This accounts for why I play little games with myself while driving.  “I wonder if I can coast to a stop at this red light and when I finally come to a stop, not be able to feel it?�  Or sometimes I see how far I can go without pushing the gas pedal.  My entire mission while learning to drive was to not freak my Mom out. My mother gets overly excited in the car.  If she thinks you’re going to fast she starts pushing her imaginary brake pedal for you.  In my old car I had fingernail imprints on the passenger handle where she felt her life might be spared from my crazy driving if she just held on a little tighter. 

   By far my favorite is how far away from another car she thinks you should be before you start braking.  Her philosophy is that as soon as you see brake lights, you should brake.  Does it matter that you are two complete blocks away from the next car?  No.  If you see brake lights you should brake too.  Believe it or not that’s not the bad part.  The bad part is when she gets scared I’m not going to stop.  She will slowly shrink down in the seat so that eventually the seat belt is at her chin, and then all of a sudden throw her feet up on the glove box, squish her eyes shut, grip the passenger handle and yell out for me to stop. 

After teaching me to drive, she handed the job over to my Dad when it was my sister’s turn.  That accounts for why my sister speeds everywhere, races to be the first one at the red light, and yells out obscenities to all the other “idiot drivers.�  I tried to steer clear of her driving process, save one invaluable gem I passed on to her: the wave.  Always wave.  It fixes everything. 

In the wrong lane and need to get over? Wave at the person next to you before and after you get in.  Polite drivers wave when someone lets them over.  If you accidentally cut someone off, wave an apology.  If there is a huge back-up in one lane so you jump into the adjacent lane and zip right past everyone only to realize your faster lane is a turn only lane, and you really need to go straight in the slow lane; when you eventually get back over, wave.  Everyone hates “that guy,� that sneak in at the end guy, so you may need a wave and a sheepish shrug/smile, but for the love of Pete, at least wave.

Yesterday I was taking my sister to the airport and this lady just about side swiped us but after she corrected her mistake, she gave us a wave.  It made me feel just a little bit better.  I looked at my sister and raised my eyebrows and she says, “I know, I know…the wave.�

Women do this more often than men.  We seem to be better at the nonverbal “Thanks for letting me in your lane,� or “Sorry I just cut you off,� or “Oops, I didn’t mean to almost force you off the road and into a ditch where your car could have plummeted into that ravine.�  We wave.  Men don’t.  I think the world would be a better place if we all adopted the wave theory behind driving.  It just makes you a little less angry when someone cuts you off, just a smidge less likely to follow them to a gas station and smash their window.

“Marge, can you believe that little piece of $%#!@, just cut me off!  Where’s my rifle, I think we can pick him off at the next red light.�  

“Wait Hank, he just waved.� 

“Oh, he waved, well then that’s ok.�

See how easy that was.  Smile and wave boys. Smile and wave.