What do Maverick, Luke Skywalker and the guy from Iron Eagle have in common?

When I feel like all of them rolled into one person. So I am driving to work one morning about a month ago or was it two, either way it really doesn’t matter. So it is 7:15 in the morning and it is really foggy when I leave my house in Utrera. Fog isn’t usually that uncommon but in the city it is. Usually it happens out on the farm land which makes me believe that this is going to be a long and arduous trip into work, good thing I left earlier than normal.

Now the drivers here are frustrating, not in a “I will rid your bumper so close that you can’t see my hood” but more in a “please shut your blinker off so that I actually know that you do know where you are going” as well as “I know there are no other people coming from the other direction but please stop swerving from side to side” combination kind of way, and I am not even a native driver so I can only imagine what a competent native driver feels like. So when I get a chance to pass people who are doing 25 kph, I don’t know if we were actually doing 25 kph since my speedometer doesn’t space out enough that slow, on a straightway I will take advance of it. The cool thing is that the Mercedes SUV behind me has the same feeling and passes the slower cars, yes all four cars, which I pass almost as quickly as I pass them.

So we are zipping right along the rural highway at probably 65 kph in a 70 kph zone. Not a huge deal since the typical travel speed on this section of road is around 110 kph when it is sunny and dry out. The fog is, like I said, the crutch for this morning’s commute. But it gives me time to think and actually enjoy driving in the fog. The twists and turns that I normally take for granted are now enlightening, mystical and spooky all wrapped up into one. So as I drive, duck, dodge, dip and … drive through the fog listening to my random iPod driving mix I feel almost like Luke Skywalker when he is attempting to land on the swampy planet that Yoda lives on. He and I share, all be it in my mind, the same uncertain feeling that something might come up unexpectedly and we may have to perform evasive actions to save ourselves and our “ships”. Now Luke’s ship is actually a space flying inter-galactic star cruiser (or something like that) that has defeated many imperial star cruisers in a fierce space battle and mine is a blue Chevy Spark but they are the same in my mind at the moment. As I roll over the hills and around corners I feel like I am going to find Yoda or maybe a lost cow standing in the middle of the road but instead I find another pack of cars that are obsessively slow even for the intermittent dense fog that is scattered across the farm fields on my trip into work.

Now it is at the exact moment that I hit my blinker to pass this pack of vehicles that my iPod changes songs from Matisyahu’s “King without a Crown” to Brooks and Dunn’s “Hillbilly Deluxe” and I get that overwhelming feeling that Goose is sitting next to me saying “That isn’t a good idea Mave” and I reply “Sorry Goose but it is time to buzz the tower” I hit the accelerator, move into the left lane and fly right by the group or three vehicles this time with my “wingman” (the Mercedes SUV from earlier) right on my tail following. After I settle back into the right lane I see another vehicle coming the other way with blue lights on the roof, it is the “fuzz” a.k.a. the provincial police. On a side note I like that the police here in Spain have to have their roof lights on which means that you can see them from a mile away.

Now as I turn onto another rural highway still continuing to work I lose my “wingman” as they continue straight to another destination and I feel like I have lost “Chappy” from Iron Eagle. I feel like he got shot down and now the only thing that I have to carry through to the end of my mission (arriving at work) is an audio cassette that he made for me the night before just in case anything happened. The song that makes me think this is “Beverly Hills” by Weezer since the version that I have has Hugh Hefner in the beginning. I think to myself “self you have to preserve. You have an objection to complete and the only way you are going to succeed is to get thru this and get to work”. It is at this time that the fog rolls back and the road become clear. It is almost like the sea way parted and is guiding me to my destination.

Well as the roads are now clear the only thing I can think of is how can I going to type this into my iPod so that I can remember this all, then bang! Epiphany! Shh-zam! I have a voice recorder on my iPod. So I whip out my handy dandy iPod and record the voice memos. There are two voice memos which I have included for your listening pleasure but be warned now that the second voice memo does have a curse work in it since my voice cracked at the 15ish second mark.

I hope you enjoy





Stay Frosty
-C