Monday, May 05, 2008

A 4-wheeled Invisibility Cloak


Are you one of the people that thinks that once they sit down in their car and shut the door no one can see what they are doing in the car? Shrouded in a cloak of invisibility?

I am a big fan of people watching, so of course when I am stuck at a long Raleigh stop light, I like to take a moment to check my road neighbors out. Usually it's just someone singing along on the radio, or chatting on the phone. Every once an a while there is a nose picker digging for gold, or some chick putting her face on in her rear view mirror.

The other day was the most obvious case of car invisibility syndrome (CIS) I've seen. A woman, on her way to work, decided to take a moment to do some personal facial grooming - best left done in the privacy of one's home. I watched her rub her face a little bit, looking at her chin in the sunshine as it streamed through her windshield. I thought perhaps she was just an older woman, doing the cursory "this is what it would be like if I got a face lift" move, but no, she was assessing her facial hair situation. She reached over to her passenger seat, and pulled out a scissors, going to town trimming whatever it is she had abundance of. I watched with fascination as she trimmed, trimmed, trimmed.

Now, I understand everyone has things that have to be 'managed' in their personal grooming, but I wonder if the woman I watched would manage her situation differently, if she knew that I was putting the story of the sight that I saw out into cyber-space. I'm not trying to make fun of her, I'm just trying to warn my precious readers to not do anything in their car that they wouldn't do out in the middle of a busy city street.

This public service announcement on CIS brought to you by the Missay Foundation.

No comments: