Please don't ram my sad little compact car with your big bad SUV

If I had to classify the feeling that arose in me when I saw your headlights flashing behind me, I would call it a mixture of awe and terror. Awe because the size of your SUV is a triumph of American engineering. Terror because of what your behemoth of a vehicle could do to my tiny, vulnerable Honda.

Your high beams flash and I offer a silent prayer that you have some mercy and don’t ram my compact car with your big, bad SUV. I squint to try to make out your hood ornament to tell if you’re driving a Yukon or Hummer or Ford F-1750 or whatever tank they sell. I see that it’s an Escalade and a shiver runs through my blood. And it’s white so that indicates that it’s a real badass driving. So, even though I’m already doing 75 mph, I move over and let you pass.

Because I know when to pick my battles. If you’d been driving some sad little Kia Rio or something, I would have laughed and not moved for you. What are you gonna do in that car, honk indignantly? That SUV, though — it could crush me like the bug that I am. It could sideswipe my matchbox car into a pancake and only a slight flake of red paint on your door would mark the fact that I ever existed.

And you know what they’d say at my (closed casket) funeral? They’d say, “He should have respected his betters.”

And they’d be right. I should learn a little respect and a healthy amount of fear for the person who would drive that white Escalade. Cadillac would never just sell or lease that magnificent vehicle to any schmoe who could leverage that amount of income on transportation. No, I can only assume you’re some sort of captain of industry and unlike the rest of us going for Sunday drives in our clown cars, you’re actually trying to get somewhere — somewhere important. So I respect you more than anybody driving a tiny Prius. We all do.

What must it be like driving that thing and knowing the Red Sea will part for you? Peons like me cannot imagine. I can only ask that you spare me your wrath and let me live. See, I’ve already moved out of your way. And you’re halfway to the horizon, leaving a trail of Badass in your wake.