I Drive The Speed Limit On North 19th And I Am Not Sorry

The speed limit on North 19th Avenue is 35 miles per hour. I know this because I read the sign. It is a white sign with black numbers. It is not ambiguous. It does not say “35 or whatever feels right.” It says 35.

I drive 35.

Every single day, someone in a truck that costs more than my house rides my bumper like we’re in a draft at Talladega. They flash their lights. They swerve. They make a face I can see clearly in my rearview mirror because they are that close. Then they pass me, accelerate to what I estimate is 50, and arrive at the next red light four seconds before I do.

The Shopping Cart Situation

The WinCo parking lot has become a lawless frontier. Not because of crime — because of shopping carts. Abandoned shopping carts rolling freely across the asphalt like tumbleweeds in a western nobody asked for.

There is a corral. It is painted yellow. It asks nothing of you except an additional fifteen to forty feet of walking after loading your groceries.

Last Tuesday I watched a grown man in a Carhartt jacket park his cart directly behind someone else’s Subaru and walk away. He did not look back. He did not hesitate. He simply decided the cart’s journey was over and the next chapter was someone else’s problem.

I Tried Oat Milk

My wife asked me to try oat milk. I said fine. I’m a reasonable man.

It is not milk. I don’t mean that politically. I mean I poured it into my coffee and the coffee turned a color I’ve never seen before. A defeated color. I drank it because I said I would, then I drove to Town & Country and bought a half gallon of 2% like a person who hasn’t lost his mind.