Mid-Date Texting

     Just imagine she's wearing mirrored aviators and midnight blue. Her black and white parked alongside you clogging the HOV lane as you both ride the brake below 30. Your breath slows feeling the tug of your shoulder belt and as you recall dad obnoxiously checking each tail light last month before leaving your parent's for a visit. Vibration from the center console has never been easier to ignore knowing she's watching you. Your focus on the road ahead hasn't been this intense since the third attempt at your driver's test when you were sixteen. That's a good thing too because she doesn't want your attention on her; the road is her words and she won't accept a compliment as an excuse for running into the car ahead.

     Many have already forgotten what life was like without smartphones. Something so powerful and useful that's always accessible, demands attention. Priorities become ambiguous when we all can relate to the excuses for checking a text during a conversation or using Google to insert details into it. After all who can enjoy their meal wondering the average weight of a bengal tiger or who won the gold medal for figure skating in the '86 Olympics? We even leave our phones on the dinner table as if to say, I'm listening to you but keeping my options open. It's easy to tuck the world away on a first date. You're both excited and you legitimately have decades of detail to learn about this person, detail that Facebook has filtered from view. What speaks to her isn't how well you merge into traffic the first time but instead what habits dominate your daily commute and how you drive when no one is watching.