Road animals

I have been doing quite a bit of traveling lately. I'm driving back and forth to Texarkana a couple of times each week. I must say that the highways and byways between here and Texarkana are very similar to a jungle with all of the different drivers on the roads.

First, there are the sloths. Sloths are known for their slowness of movement and believe you me there are some very slow drivers out there. Now I'm not talking about folks driving the speed limit or even 5 mph under. I'm talking about the folks who drive 10 to 15 mph slower than the posted speed limit. Even more frustrating is the fact that many of the sloths plant themselves in the passing lane and stay there. Real sloths live in trees and the slothlike drivers live in the fast lane.

Then we have the hyenas. Hyenas are known to have a very rich vocabulary and communicate very frequently with other members of their clan. I spot many hyenas on my travels. They constantly communicate with their pack via cellphone and many of them can be seen to cackle very much like the hyena. Hyenas are also very opportunistic and the driving hyenas are very similar in the way they will dart in and out between cars all while continuing to communicate with whoever is on the other end of the phone.

Next are the cheetahs. The cheetah is built for speed. It has long, slim, muscular legs, a small, rounded head set on a long neck, a flexible spine, a deep chest, claws and special pads on its feet for traction and a long, tail for balance. Cheetahs are the fastest cat in the animal kingdom. The road cheetahs that I have experienced are fast as well and can also instill fear in anyone that sees them coming up from behind, much like the fear I'm sure a gazelle has when it sees the cheetah closing in. I have seen so many cheetahs lately that I feel like Marlin Perkins from the old television show "Wild Kingdom." However, I'm not out there to study the cheetahs like Marlin, I'm just trying to survive like a friendly water buffalo.

Then we come to my least favorite road animal and that would be the highway rhinoceros. Rhinos are large creatures who can move incredibly fast when they want to. Some rhinos have been clocked running as fast at 35 mph which is very fast for an animal of that size. Rhinos are solitary animals but will be sociable when encountering other rhinos in the wild. These characteristics lead me to compare them to the occasional semi-truck drivers who like to drive side by side down the road at 5 mph under the speed limit.

There is nothing more frustrating than coming up on a tandem of road rhinos who have decided they want to take a portion of their journey side by side. They are so large that no other animal on the road would dare challenge them. I mean, who wants to be on the business end of one of those rhino horns? Not me, for sure. So the rest of us road animals patiently wait for the rhinos to finish and move on. I imagine it is very similar to the watering hole in the jungle. The smaller animals wait while the rhinos bath and drink at the watering hole and then it is our turn.

I would just like to ask that maybe the rhinos could take a little shorter shower next time. I don't love the two-hour drive to Texarkana and when the road rhinos are in my path and forcing me to wait it can become frustrating.

I guess I could retaliate by becoming the road elephant. In my world, those are the trucks that carry the "wide loads" and take up two lanes of traffic all by themselves. I bet the rhinos wouldn't mess with an elephant.