Editor's Note: Reprinted from my original post on Pipe Chat. com moments ago. Didn't feel like typing it again. A bit of a read but a very funny story.

I'll preface my remarks by pointing out that as a traditional Southern gentleman
there are certain core principles I'll carry with me to my dying day. Among
these principles are deference to women and respect for my elders. If at any
point in this post, an error in interpretation on your part compells you to
believe I have abandoned either, please accept my pre-emptive
apology.

Given the location of Casa GI (in the heart of God's waiting
room) interactions with the elderly are not at all uncommon. For years, I was
quite perplexed as to why so many of them share the road with people going to
work first thing in the morning. After much meditation on the subject and a
little more perspective brought on by my own advancing years, I figured out that
they are on the road at that time because after all those years of getting up
and going to work it has become automatic (job or no job.) What's more, like
me, I suspect most of them can't stay up much past 10 PM and anything more than
about 6 hours in bed and their back begins to throb like a toothache. I figured
that by 7:30 or 8:00 AM, most of them had probably been awake for at least 4 to
5 hours, ate breakfast, read every word of the daily paper, drank a pot of
coffee, showered, shaved and dressed. All of that done, it's now 7:30-8:00 AM
and they have nowhere to be and all day to get there. Boredom begins to set in
and off for a drive they go, sometimes just to drive and get some fresh air,
sometimes to hit the grocery stores before they get crowded, but I
digress.

I was behind one of these people on my way to work this
morning. She was an immaculately groomed woman of 103 or so, who I knew right
away was a woman of breeding and sophistication. You see, she had abandoned the
traditional 23 foot Oldsmobuick in favor of a sleek black Lexus. Predictably,
she was in the fast lane. Why shouldn't she be? After all she had apparently
thrown caution to the wind, put the lead foot down and had the sleek black Lexus
up to a blistering 10 MPH! Apparently she had just seen Thelma and Louise and
had turned into an absolute mad woman. I was probably the third or fourth car
in the half mile long procession behind her when a flatbed 18 wheeler with half
a manufactured home on the bed and his escort truck both pulled in front of me.
He naturally got in the slow lane and immediately backed up traffic while
Grandma in the Lexus was still fouling the fast lane. Just when I was on the
brink of getting really irritated, I looked up and...(I'm not making this up, I
swear) saw the truck, with half a house on the back of it, wide load signs,
flashing lights, the whole deal, blow past the old lady in the Lexus like she
was PARKED! I couldn't believe what I was seeing! Not that he was moving fast
at all but I probably could have walked faster than Bea Arthur was driving that
Lexus. Even though traffic was now a complete mess, I laughed my ass off all
the way to work, at one point nearly relieving myself in my pants.

So in
summary. You've worked your butt off your entire life, made a decent living and
want to retire in Florida? Cool, no problem with that. You've got so much
spare time that you're OK with taking three and a half hours to get to a Publix
five blocks from your house? Again, cool, no problem with that. Heck, I should
be that lucky. But with all due respect, I would offer the following helpful
lane selection hints:

1. If you're in the fast lane and look in your
rearview mirror and there's traffic backed up behind you for 3/4 of a mile and
there's no one ahead of you for a 1/4 mile or so, you should probably be in the
slow lane.

2. While not 100% accurate another highly reliable indicator
is that if you were alive when Woodrow Wilson was president you should probably
be in the slow lane whenever you drive.

3. A dead give away, however is
if you're in the fast lane and a large truck with half a f***ing house on it
blows your doors off you're wrinkly butt DEFINITELY needs to be in the slow
lane!

But seriously, and the Southern boys will get the full meaning of
this, "Bless her heart!"