Well, I'm now back from break so I figure I should get back to informing you all on the important things on life, namely, telling all of you how not to piss me off.

Since a very significant part of spring break was spent traveling, and I let some other people drive, I discovered many new ways you can seriously piss me off. The following will likely be the most epic article I have ever written in the history of me writing epic articles.

First I figure I ought to preface this somewhat. Way back when I was active in Boy Scouts, on one very long drive to someplace to go camping while slowly driving though a construction site, my scoutmaster points to some heavy machinery, and says "You don't want to get behind one of those things." Not really sure which piece of monsterous machinery he was talking about, we innocently ask "What?" to which he replied, "Women drivers." So from a very early age, like 13, I had an outside influence who frequently made women driver jokes. However, I resisted to accept this stereotype, because in my family, especially my dad's side, guys are flat out dangerous drivers. Also, being from Goshen, not much phases you when you are driving. People go 15+ mph over the speed limit as they pass the police department. At least I did anyway.

But this spring break has, without a doubt, cracked my belief in women drivers being acceptably competent. I was the one guy among five girls on this trip and some of the behavior appalled me, or at least irritated me to no end. This has been the longest trip outside of family adventures, and opened my eyes to some of the most irritiating behaviour I have encountered. The following is by no means a comprehensive list of things that irritate me while driving, but it should help all you out there, men included, know how not to piss me off.

1. Do not hit my train while you are driving. Okay, so this did not involve me driving, or even being in the car, but believe you me, this did not make my day. If you want to upset me, go ahead and hit my train and turn my three hour trip into a seven hour ordeal, but I'm warning you, I will grumble at you fiercely from within the train and have fiendish nightmares of you hitting my train later in the week as I sleep in a car.

2. Do not get pulled over while driving. This just makes me mad, not necessarily because I don't like getting pulled over, I don't mind that too much at all, but because you will yell at me every time I crack a joke as the cop approaches. You will then stiffle laughter and then the cop thinks you are high.

3. Do not hand the driver a seat belt when asked for the license and registration. Weird stuff is always found in glove boxes, and when asked to get a black folder thingy, do not grab the first black thing you find, hope it is the magic registration holder, and hand it to the driver. This makes the cop think everyone in the car is high.

4. Do not ask the cop what the registration is when in bold print on the top piece of paper in the folder says in bold "New York Registration." A valiant effort indeed, open the black folder thingy, and give up when more than one thing is in there. This makes the cop think you are illiterate and high.

5. Do not blame the cop asking you, "How much pot have you smoked tonight?" on me wearing my skull cap, which you lovingly deem "the druggie hat." I doubt that the first thing that went through the cop's head as he approached the car was "Omigod, that guy in the back seat is wearing one of those skull caps, which are mass produced and shipped by the millions to stores across the fruited plain, the driver must have smoked pot tonight."

6. Do not play "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," every hour on the hour. DJs across the land are addicted to this song, and have been for months now. The FCC should fine every station that plays a song this often a whole lot of money, because it is flat out dangerous. Just think of how many times a day drivers must take their eyes off the road to change the station to another one that is overplaying this song. I bet the guy who hit my train was attempting to find a station that wasn't playing this song, and was spending so much time looking for one that by the time his eyes came back to the road, he was already sinking into a nearby lake. If this was the case, it is an almost forgivable offense.

7. Do not sing along to "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." Actually, this should be expanded to "Do not sing along with the radio." Whenever this happens, I think, good Lord, the reception is suddenly terrible for this station, but I soon find that the whole car decided to sing along to the radio, just before I am about to change the station. And for the record, I would change the station if it was "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," but this would likely cause a riot involving very loud singing or threats of country music. And I decide that keeping it at the current station is a necessary evil.

8. Do not yell, "Omigod, this is, like, my favorite song" for every third song that comes on the radio. This is akin to me saying, "Omigod, (insert food item here) is, like, my favorite thing to put hot sauce on." It will likely be true. Or, "Omigod, (insert irritating behaviour mentioned in this article) is, like, my least favorite behaviour trait you have exhibited while on this trip." Like yelling when aproaching, surprise, yet another pothole, it is pointless, unnecessary, and most importantly, irritating enough to get me to write about it.

9. Do not listen to country music while I am in your car. Country music causes me to instinctively cringe and causes a very strong desire to punch the nearest speaker. As near as I can tell, there is a country song generator somewhere out there where you have word groups like "girlfriend/cowboy/dog/truck/house/27 oz. steak" and "left me/took my girlfriend/got neutered/broke down after 32 years/got new ti-ahs/was eaten by my ex-girlfriend/ex-cowboy/ex-dog" and you just pick words out of the groups, croon with a twang, and become a rich and famous country singer.

10. Do not yell everytime we approach a pothole in the road. Here is a quick lesson in potholes. Potholes are caused by water getting into crackes in the road, and then freezing. As water freezes, it expands, breaking up the road. As the pothole size increases, more water can get into it, and then it can make an even larger hole. Here is a quick lesson in Maine. Maine has a lot of freezing. Maine has a lot of thawing. Maine has a lot of water. Maine doesn't have the army of pothole fillers they need to keep up with the above factors. A quick lesson in my sprink break adventure. We spent a lot of time driving in Maine. Its a miracle I'm still sane.

11. Do not yell every time we approach a crack in the road. Cracks in the roads are caused by the road surface shrinking in very cold weather from their natural size. Asphalt cannot be laid in sub-40 degree weather. Maine's weather will occasionally get a very long way from 40 degree weather.

12. Do not yell, honk your horn madly, and accelerate to 90 when a semi in the left lane turns on its turn signal while you are in the right lane when you are on the highway. Wait, how about this, just don't frickin' yell when there is absolutely no point to it. It's funny, and almost cute, the first half time you do it. It goes downhill from there. Fast.

13. Do not drive with the solid white line to left of the car. "Co-ou-ul-ld yo-oo-oo-oou pluh-ee-ee-eaz-zz-ze moo-oo-ov-ve to-oo th-he le-ff-ft so-oo we-ee-ee ar-re-n't-t on-nn th-he ru-mm-mb-le str-ri-ip?-??" Thank you.

14. Do not drive too fast for a two-lane, gravel road covered in snow, attempt to pass another car driving in the middle of the road on the right, and not realize that this road has a ditch with a decent depth that is filled with soft, car-swallowing snow. This will cause you to be pulled oot by a Canadish-Mainish guy with an accent that be true Canadian, right? and then cause me to imitate this for hours just to irritate you, the driver.

15. Do not go over 55 mph on an unbanked, hair-pin turn on a two-way on ramp to an interstate that has a significant amount of sand on it from the heavy snowfall from last week. Bad stuff happens when you do this.

16. Do not hit a guard rail on the on ramp when going way too fast for the road conditions. Crashing a car doesn't make me happy. I thought crashing a car into my train made me upset, but when I'm a passenger in the car, it makes me more upset.

17. Do not over-correct, cross two lanes of road, and hit the other guardrail with a much greater force than the first guardrail you hit. This is when really bad stuff happens. Like you destroy one headlight, bend in a panel of the car so that it makes really loud noise at the smallest bump as it rubs the tire, and cause me to hit my head against the side of the car so hard that I have a splitting headache for 10 hours afterwards. But most of all, crashing your car hard will piss me off.

18. Do not yell and proceed to hyperventilate every time the car makes a tiny noise when a bent panel of the recently crashed car rubs with the tire. Driving me insane and causing me to tense up to the point where my arms fall asleep will not make the car stop rubbing the tires. Yes, it is a very scary sound, much like snoring or yawning, but please control yourself should this situation arise.

Well, that just about scrapes the surface of what I learned over break with regards to driving and all. I may write a part two, who knows, but I got computer homework to finish in a couple hours.