As a bee.

There are many things I love about Washington DC, the arts and monuments chief among them. I find the people here to be interesting, intelligent and challenging. I adore the fact that spring has sprung here when it was not even close to doing so back home. But I do not miss the way these people drive.

Now, I'm not a shrinking violet behind the wheel. Ask Alisa! I basically forced her into a nonexistent parking spot near her favorite bakery using only my will. Or any of my friends who have spent years adjusting to the g-forces caused by the marriage of my foot to my accelerator. Driving in DC, however, seems to be more than haste, more than impatience. Everything here is based on being busy and important. So when a light turns green and you, say, take time to send the signal along your neurons to your foot to respond then the driver behind you is already laying on the horn declaring, "I'M BUSY AND IMPORTANT! MOVE IT!"

This behavior is, frankly, hilarious. It's wildly amusing for me as an outsider to return here and see how fast people drive, how they cut off even two cars just to get to their destination because 'busy' and 'important' are everything. A guy this morning kept speeding past me in his Mercedes. He was doing about 55 mph on surface streets and in residential zones. And he was sitting right in front of me at all four of the red lights we hit on the way to our destination. He hasn't learned that the Universe will not implode if you just pause for a second and consider that you're not Atlas. I felt like sharing that gem with him but I just smiled. And then I silently said a prayer of thanks for Montana and chased it with a prayer that the pace there always remains just about the same.