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Great Onely Activities, part 91-3v: THE PASSENGER SEAT September 9, 2008

This week I drove five hours down to North Carolina, where my friend’s family had a beach house. I stopped in Williamsburg, Virginia on the way there and back, to see another friend. On the trip I realized the wonders of an empty passenger seat. Now, don’t get me wrong–sometimes having a passenger has its benefits. They can read you crossword puzzle clues, pass you a potato chip, read the map. But I have a GPS unit (his name is Yannick; he’s German), crossword puzzles irritate me, and I can pass myself a chip because I prop the bag up in the empty passenger seat, between my purse and my Ipod. I love having a wide open space next to me. I can reach over and grab a water bottle or sunglasses when I’m driving just as easily as if someone passed them to me.

When I pack the car, I can toss items on the cushion instead of squirreling them away between the two front seats or on the floor in back. I find a great sense of adventure and possibility in piling things in the passenger seat. My baby carrots (I might drive through a fast food wasteland); my raincoat (the hurricane might catch up with me!); my fleece (in case I have to run into a meatlocker to pee!); my Ipod (I’m going to learn Spanish before Norfolk!); my wet wipes (for those times when I need to clean up blood); my notebook (in case I get a great idea); my purse (I might need to show the fuzz my ID); my phone (self-explanatory) . . . and so on.

The point is, in an unoccupied passenger seat all my equipment is right there at my fingertips. I line it up and straighten the edges of my jacket and I’m ready–ready to run, healthy dry and warm, into a Latin-owned meatlocker where I can wipe up a nice corner to squat in before the cops come get me for trespassing and I need to call my lawyer and take notes for a blog post about the experience.  

–CC