The Worst Passenger in the World

Proving once again that men can be very slow learners ...

We were five, maybe six hours into what turned out to be a 13-hour drive, and I had a decision to make: did I want to continue my 31-year run as the worst passenger on earth, or was I ready to pull my head out of my ass and let my wife drive?

In terms of mental clarity, I wasn’t at my best. I was in a substantial amount of pain, thanks to the double sports hernia/adductor tendon surgery I had the day before in Fremont, California. I won’t hit you with a lot of detail; I’ll just say this surgery involved four open incisions in a very delicate area. (Was it wise to attempt an 850-mile drive one day after major surgery? You be the judge.)

Due to the pain, I was gobbling Percocet on the shorter side of the 4-6 hour spacing window my doc had advised. But no amount of Percocet was going to tempt me to repeat that first rest-stop break we made outside of Sacramento, where I struggled to get out of the car, then limped to the restroom clutching Sara’s arm, moaning in agony. After that, I didn’t get out of the car: it was pee bags all the way for me.

In case you’ve never seen a pee bag before …

So there I was, head swimming with Percocet, pee bags piling up at my feet, unable to move without pain, and yet I’m offering Sara all kinds of helpful driving tips: you could probably go faster, there’s a passing lane ahead, that guy behind you wants to get by, etc., etc.

A Crucial Moment

That’s when Sara said something that made me realize we were at a crucial moment in our history together. It wasn’t an ultimatum, exactly, but it sounded an awful lot like “you can either shut up or I’m pulling this car over and we can stay in a fucking hotel until you feel good enough to drive yourself.” (She’d probably help me remember exactly what it was she said, because when it comes to her calling me on being an asshole, she has a near photographic memory, but this is my story and honestly, I’m afraid to ask her.)

My first thought was: “I could drive!” After all, I “reasoned,” I’m on the tail end of this last Percocet, so my head should be clearing up soon. I could basically use the cruise control to drive, I don’t really need to move my legs much at all … oh hell, I couldn’t even convince myself and I sure as hell knew it would be a non-starter with Sara. Say what I might about her driving, she recognized someone who should not get behind the wheel. I bit my tongue on this one.

Or, I could go on making the kind of “helpful comments” and advice I had been offering all day, hell, all our marriage, but I sensed in her a steely readiness to live up to her threat. I knew that sitting in a shabby hotel with a pissed-off wife for god knows how long was going to take us down a pretty dark path.

Look, I can hear you yelling at me as you read this, saying “Dummy, just apologize and shut up.” But it took me some time to realize that there was another option, that I could simply make conversation, look out the window, and basically be a decent passenger. And this seems like the most obvious solution, doesn’t it? All it would require is that I let the driver drive—just as she had done for me ever since the first day we had met. But that wasn’t going to be easy for me, because I was the worst passenger in the world. 

The Worst Passenger in the World

What’s it mean to be the worst passenger in the world? Well, it looks like this: you sit in the passenger seat and second guess absolutely everything the driver does. Traffic is slowing ahead? Call it out, then put your hands on the dash as if you’re going to crash. Room to pass? “Make the pass honey, for god’s sake,” you call out, then mid-way through the pass, “show some commitment!” Sitting in the passing lane on the freeway? Constantly check the mirror, then sigh loudly if someone passes on the right: “You’re being one of those drivers.”

The worst passenger in the world sits in the passenger seat and acts like he’s the one driving, and imposes upon the driver his every judgment: go faster here, brake here, why aren’t you passing, why aren’t you letting the other driver pass? He scans the road ahead and second-guesses every … damned … thing. 

Since I’m putting the screws to this guy (that is, myself), I’ll just admit that it’s not “the driver” he second guesses, it’s just this one driver, his wife, the person he professes—accurately, I might add—to love more than anyone else in the whole world. Oh boy, this is complicated!

I’d like to be better at describing what an asshole I’ve been, but it’s hard! Have you ever tried to describe one of the shittiest parts of your own personality? It’s not a lot of fun. Can we just agree I’ve been the worst passenger in the world?

The Only Decision

Faced with the choices that day, as we drive toward the mountains north of Redding, California, the wipers slapping in the heavy rain, it occurred to me that the only choice was to be a better passenger. And so that’s what I tried.

It got worse in the dark …

Who knew it was so easy! The first thing I had to do was to recognize that I WASN’T DRIVING! So I stopped looking at the road in front of me, the cars in front of me, and I started to look out the side window. Oh hey, look at those black-and-white cows standing out there in that striking green field—how beautiful! I wonder what that billboard means? I won’t bore you with the dozen or so revelations I had about how beautiful it was to watch the world passing by. 

And then I noticed it again: I am not driving. Sure, there are situations that require decisions of the driver, but those aren’t mine to make and since I’m not making those decisions—and I trust this person next to me who is—I’ll just not worry about them. I’ll trust the driver. (I know, I’m overusing all caps, but this is new to me so I’m just going to say it again: I’LL TRUST THE DRIVER.)

And it slowly unfolded before me, clear as day even through my Percocet fog, this being a decent passenger thing: you let the driver drive, enjoy the view, and then—this one snuck up on me, just as natural as can be—offer to be helpful to the driver. 

Oh hell, I’m hip deep in revealing just how foolish I’ve been for 31 years, I’ll put this one in caps as well: BE HELPFUL TO THE DRIVER! Sympathize with how shitty it is to drive through the mountains in the rain when there are semis all over the road. Grab a sparkling water from the cooler. Rub her shoulders if she feels a little tense. Just sit there and appreciate how great it is to have someone else do the driving.

And that’s how I stopped being the worst passenger in the world.