Assholes in the carpool lane

For the past few months, Mark and I have been carpooling to work each day. This is the first time either of us have ever carpooled before, so we were equally delighted the first time we were able to use the carpool lane to bypass a half dozen cars on the on-ramp.

"Yippee! Look at us!" we chirped in unison as we whizzed by. High on adrenalin, we cheered and hooted for the next mile or two. "Carpooling totally rocks!"

The next day, the line for the non-carpoolers was exceptionally long -- at least ten cars. As we flew by, using our personal express lane, our cheers somehow became directed toward the other drivers and took a somewhat nasty tone.

"Ha, ha! YOU SUCK! WE RULE! Woo! Hoo!"

Of course we keep our celebrations on the down-low, taking care to not let the other drivers see or hear our chest pumping and guffawing. As exhilarating as the carpool lane is, neither of us want an ugly road-rage incident. So as we breeze through in our lane, we turn to each other (not out the window to the other drivers) to celebrate.

The other day, as we cruised through the carpool lane, Mark burst out, "Take THAT, Loo-HOO-sers!"

And the day after that, I sang, "We are the champions, my friends..."

The carpool lane = power. And as illustrated in the first Spider-Man movie, with great power comes great responsibility.

Mark and I are not handling our new-found power responsibly. In fact, we've become total assholes with it. But in our defense, there's simply no other time when we feel so superior to everyone else.

I hope the gods of the carpool lane take mercy on us. We're really nice people in every other way - honest. Maybe they'll at least give us points for keeping our cheers and jeers to ourselves.