Dear Mahatma: Yesterday I flashed my lights at a few people who didn't have their lights on in the rain. One guy flipped me off. -- Disconcerted
Dear Dissed: You have run up against one of our favorite sayings, bromides, expressions or nuggets of wisdom.
First, the road to Heck is paved with good intentions.
Second, everyone is good for something, even if it's to show others how not to be. We learned that many years ago from Clyde McGinnis of Batesville.
Don't stop reminding others to turn on their lights when windshield wipers are in motion. That's the law, even for those drivers who need their mamas to give them a dope slap.
Dear Mahatma: Yesterday the rush hour traffic westbound on Cantrell Hill caused traffic to slow to a crawl. I was shocked to see a BMW swerve from the inside westbound lane into the inside eastbound lane, put his car in reverse, engage his emergency flashers then start driving backwards down Cantrell Hill at a high rate of speed. What in the world are people thinking when they do harebrained things like this? It happened so fast I was paralyzed, but after my heart stopped racing I thought about calling 911. What is the recommended thing to do in a situation like this ? -- Frazzled
Dear Frazzled: To answer your first question about what that driver was thinking, well, he was thinking only of himself. Not a passing thought came into his mind about the safety and welfare of others. What he was thinking was how privileged and entitled he was. He obviously grew up with a deficit of dope slaps.
To answer the second question, calling 911 is a judgment call. If you believed others were in danger, you could have made the call and let the Little Rock Police Department exercise its own judgment as to the seriousness of the matter. Of course, by the time the police got there, our egotistical miscreant might have been terrorizing people in another part of the city.
Meanwhile, always try to get the license plate and a description of the vehicle -- make, model, color. Police have told us that many times.
Dear Mahatma: My family and I recently traveled to St. Louis via Interstate 40 and Interstate 55. Some posted signs in Arkansas read "Buckel Up." We found no problem with posted signs in Missouri. Any chance the people in charge of Arkansas signage could have spell check? -- Bev
Dear Bev: We have passed this along to the Arkansas Department of Transportation, which produces approximately 1.2 bazillion highway signs a year.
Please let's give the sign painters a break. We have personally written and published millions of words. Words are hard, a truth we have experienced many times with great regret. Not to mention the grammer. Oops. We mean grammar.
Vanity plate seen at Rebsamen Golf Course: TRANS AM. It was on a -- that's right -- Pontiac Trans Am.
Fjfellone@gmail.com
Metro on 09/15/2018