Objects in Rear View Mirror, Including the End of Civilization, Are Closer Than They Appear

So student comes in this morning and tells me his tale of woe:

[Paraphrasing]

“Sorry for my tone but I just got pulled over for a speeding ticket, was doing 80 in a 65. I tell the cop that I was only going with the flow of traffic and that I actually had to speed up to get over to the right lane and then the side. He starts telling me it’s not about the flow of traffic, it’s about the posted speed and says that I’m giving him guff (or maybe he said “lip”) and he writes me a ticket for speeding and for being in the left lane too long!”

So he rambled a little bit more about this and how he has to go to court, and taking time off work, and insurance rates and how it IS about the flow of traffic and yadi yadi yada and then he slipped this little nugget in:

[Again, paraphrasing]

“Never mind the fact that I was playing a video game. I wouldn’t have minded a ticket for distracted driving or texting or whatever.”

I cut him off to the effect of:

“You were doing 80 and playing a video game?”

His look: what’s your point?

Then:

…

Me:

So enjoy your commute home tonight, knowing that Joe Student out there is not only flying by you doing 80 but also trying to get a high score in Bejeweled.

Why Didn’t I Merge Earlier?

There is hell, where souls burn for eternity and endure endless pain and agony exponentially greater than any earthly feeble pain like being caught in the gears of a combine harvester or having your feet sawed off at the ankles with a hacksaw and then there is the hell for 

Drivers who wait to the last second to merge when they saw the goddamn lane ends, merge right signs a fucking mile and half-mile ago!

Yes, these people will surely burn in a special section of hell reserved for the absolute, unequivocally worst of the worst. Murderers, rapists, torturers, and Patriots fans have a cakewalk in hell compared to these “people.” People is a misnomer. Because when you get down to it, these are monsters to the nth degree. One can imagine the havoc they would wreak on the globe if not for the good people like you and me who stop them from clubbing baby seals, destroying humanity and the universe as we know it. 

When these monsters get to the pearly gates to be judged by Peter, he is just going to show them video of them driving up as far as they can then BOTTLENECKING every decent person on their commute home. Peter will nod his head no in disgust and the floor will drop out from under the monster as she/he/monster falls naked down a chute of poison sumac as spritzes from skunk anal scent glands assail their bodies and olfactory senses while Yanni’s greatest hits blares through kmart speakers as they are hurled into the deepest, darkest, boiling layer of hell.

And for eternity, the pain, the anguish, the hell…will continue…while the only thought allowed is 

why didn’t I merge earlier?