Reading while driving was so much better. You could control when you did this; it wasn’t like the TV, constantly crying for attention. You could pick up a book whenever, and put it back down, and the action would wait for you. Ideal driving, really–you had to pay attention to the road sometimes.

She got her system down. She would drive, reading only when stopped. Stop sign? Pull out the book. Red light? Reading break! Only she wouldn’t see the light turn green again. Someone would honk, and she knew it was time to go again. A perfect system. And nobody had to die.

One day, she took her man friend for a ride. He found the other car horns jarring. She barely noticed them anymore–they were just a reminder to put the book down and drive. Stop signs were more problematic. You didn’t always get a horn. Sometimes she’d still be reading her way through stop signs. Screeching brakes would catch her attention.

Her male friend mentioned this was not normal.

She didn’t know what to think about that. She was already making a huge compromise by switching from TV to books. What did he mean by that?

Sh stopped driving him around, but his comment stuck.

Newspapers crunched under her feet like dry leaves every time she entered the car. Sometimes she slipped on magazine pages. She go rid of the magazines first–what if they made their slippery way to the gas of brake pedals?

One summer day, a gust of wind blew the newspapers into the windshield and out the window. She breathed a sigh of relief as she narrowly avoided another accident.

“Phew!” she sighed, “I better switch to books on tape.” (to be continued)