Laws of the Road
sorry, i don't make the rules!!!
Greetings from the inside of my car, where I live now!
Between
a) driving my dad endlessly around the cursed concrete circle that encompasses his doctors’ offices, Walgreens, the grocery store, and his house, and
b) being one of those lunatics who says, “it’s not that far, I’ll just drive” when someone invites me to anything fun 500 miles away or less,
my car’s backseat is beginning to acquire the patina of a ground-level room at a Super 8 along the interstate. You know—dirty clothes tangled together and strewn about; plastic bags filled with used full-sized toiletries; a noticeable bloodstain; protein bar wrappers; a single faded water shoe. It’s all there.
But I ask you: Who among us wouldn’t drive seven flat and boring highway hours to go see Beyoncé wear fringed assless chaps while suspended over the audience via skyscraper crane in a custom red Cadillac?
The need to go to Chicago was stronger than me. Beyoncé called; I answered.
And if you haven’t shivered uncontrollably in a slutty cowgirl outfit in 50-degree night weather (that has been reduced to 40-degree night weather by the wind whipping in off Lake Michigan and directly into Soldier Field, an outdoor venue) while seated just a few feet away from a gay boy who has chosen to wear nothing to the Cowboy Carter concert but a fabric g-string body harness, his ass clenching in excitement every time he screams “MOTHERRRRRR!!!!” when Beyoncé does a costume change, you haven’t lived!
Anyway! Because I have spent uncountable hours in my car in the last month, and because it is about to be road-trip season, I humbly offer you:
The 10 Laws of the Road for 2025
A legally binding guide to road-tripping this summer
Law #1: If your bumper sticker is funny and gay, it must be written in huge print, and you have to slow down a little bit so I can read it.
This is mandatory, and I don’t think it’s asking too much!!
Law #2: All gas stations will immediately replace harsh overhead fluorescent lighting in their bathrooms with beautiful soft glowing bulbs.
I don’t care about cost efficiency, I care about leaving my house believing I look fine and then being told by a Kwik Trip bathroom mirror four hours later that I look like the greying carcass of a 90-year-old U.S. congressman who won’t retire for any reason!!
Law #3: All small towns must run a town-wide contest for what their water tower should look like.
WHY DOES EVERY WATER TOWER HAVE TO BE BEIGE OR BLUE? It could be the cutest fucking thing you’ve ever seen, like this quaint-ass TEAPOT in Lindstrom, Minnesota, which will also belch friggin’ steam from its spout twice a day, starting this summer! Come on!!!
Suggested punishment for having a stupid and unimaginative water tower:
Mayor goes to jail.
Or mayor holds an open town forum inviting all residents to offer their opinions on whether or not bike lanes should be installed on every street using taxpayer money. Whichever punishment is worse!!!
Law #4: The words “antique mall” must mean something.
In the same way that “champagne” must indicate sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France, if I exit the highway to go to your “antique mall” that is LOL GOTCHA!!! actually seven miles off the highway exit, I had by golly better find a genuine, rock-solid antique mall staffed by chatty old people with a shaky grip on what Pyrex sets are currently going for.
This “antique mall” had better not be someone's cousin's sister's tin shed where she sells old mattresses she salvaged from a Holiday Inn’s dumpster during a remodel in 2013.
Law #5: Any truck tailgating in any lane during inclement weather (snow, sleet, rain, etc.) will immediately learn the meaning of “fuck around and find out.”
The lesson doesn’t have to be lethal, but it must be terrifying and also total the truck.
Law #6: All podcasts I love must produce one hundred more episodes within the next 30 days.
Do I know what goes into making a podcast? No.
Do I suspect the workload is absolutely bananas and that the creation of each episode takes many hours of concentrated effort? Yes! BUT HERE IS MY MONEY, PLEASE QUIT YOUR DAY JOBS AND KEEP MAKING ME LAUGH, I am on hour three of a six-hour drive and the chances of me starting an entirely new podcast?? zero, baby, it is not happening, I am too deep in with y’all!!
Law #7: Cops will get a life.
You’re telling me you have nothing better to do than get my ass for going exactly 11 miles over the speed limit in Sparta, Wisconsin? What if you took this time and used it to consider a different career?
Law #8: If a town’s name is something like “Wangs”, “Nimrod”, “Mud Butte”, or “Blue Ball”, there must be a pull-off space right next to the sign where you can take a picture.
Subclause: (i.) The town’s funny name must become the theme of the town; (ii.) 100% of tourist activities must center around this theme, trickling all the way down to suggestively named menu items at Big Wang’s Weiner Roast & COCKtail Club.
Law #9: It is henceforth illegal for a car containing three or more small children to pull up next to me at a gas station, and for those children to then run and cut in front of me as I’m making my way to the single-stall bathroom.
We have to make this a law for the common good. Otherwise, we’re all about to stand in line for 20 real-time minutes smelling hot diapers and listening to the melodic strains of “Wait for Mama. WAIT for Mama, Brynlee, don’t you open that door. Tayson, you STAY PUT, stay RIGHT there, Brynlee, uh-uh, don’t you put that in your mouth!!!” through a locked ladies’ room door blackened around the handle with sticky child-height hand smudges.
Law #10: Teenage drivers watching TikTok while actively driving will have their licenses and phones revoked for five years.
Maybe 10 years. OK, 10 years. Just to be safe.
I wish this was fake news, but on my drive to and from Chicago this weekend, I saw not one, not two, but three separate instances of young drivers fully watching TikTok as they were doing 75 on the interstate.
Suggested punishments include: Obviously the aforementioned consequences, but additionally:
Being forced to wear the opposite of whatever kind of pants are in favor with the youth for the next three years.
Serving two years working full-time in a call center, making live phone calls.
Going up to 365 strangers (one per day for a year), introducing themselves, and making polite small talk.
These are all laws now, sorry, I don’t make the rules!!
I have that precise bumper sticker! Except mine is harder to read (sorry) because it's tattered and peeling after tens of thousands of miles of professing my homosexuality to everyone who tails me
The 20 real-time minutes waiting for the single gas station bathroom is so real lmao