Drive left them feeling clobbered (10/17/07)

There may be a pattern here.

Over the weekend, the Purdue Boilermakers took to the field against Michigan, looking for the win that would improve their bids for a post-season bowl game.

They got clobbered.

Over the weekend, the Indiana Hoosiers took to the field against Michigan State, looking for the win that would cinch a bowl bid for the first time in several years.

They got clobbered.

Over the weekend, I took to the highways, looking to squeeze in a bit of vacation time before autumn settles in.

And I very nearly got clobbered by drivers from Michigan.

The plan was pretty simple.

We figured that since it's just the two of us at home these days, we could slip away for an extended weekend. We both took Friday as vacation days and headed north.

Our destination was Stratford, Ontario, where we had in mind a weekend at the theater festival there. It's pretty much of an endurathon when we do Stratford.

After a drive of about seven hours, we figure we need to squeeze in as many performances as possible.

This year, that translated into a Friday night performance of "King Lear," a Saturday matinee of "A Comedy of Errors," and a Saturday night performance of "My One and Only," a musical with Gershwin tunes.

But if you're going to Stratford, you have to go through Michigan. And that means you have to deal with Michigan drivers.

Not an hour out of Fort Wayne, we started running into the license plates.

Usually, it worked like this. We'd be tooling along on I-69 when I'd see a car in my rear view mirror growing larger by the second. I'd look at the speedometer and find I was going a pretty respectable 75 or so in a 70 mph zone. Then I'd see the car in the rear view mirror grow so large I could read the writing on the driver's T-shirt just before it zipped around us like we were standing still.

Every time, I'd check the license plates of the passing SUV or pick up or coupe or rust bucket. And every time, I'd see the same plates: Michigan.

You learn a couple things about Michigan drivers after awhile. That is, you learn a couple of things or you end up in the ditch.

In our case, after a trip up to Stratford on Friday and a trip home through rain on Sunday, I learned the following:

•Michigan drivers have some form of ESP. It's never necessary for them to signal lane changes to other drivers. Apparently, everyone from Michigan knows what they're doing. Those of us from out of state, lacking the gift of mind-reading, travel at our peril.

•Michigan drivers think the rest of us are wimps, especially those of us who do things like turning on our headlights in a rainstorm. You could almost hear the Michigan driver's thoughts: Why should I turn my lights on in the rain? That would simply alert other drivers to my presence and take all the fun out of a Sunday afternoon. Or, at least, that's what I would have heard if I'd had Michigan-driver ESP.

•Michigan drivers believe that the posted speed limit is a suggestion, sort of like "add a pinch of salt." Who can define "pinch" in that case? And why would anyone settle for the posted 70 or fudged 75 when they can go 85 or 90?

We rolled in a little before 7 p.m. Sunday, feeling a bit like the Boilermakers and a bit like the Hoosiers.

Clobbered? Not really, but we sure know who we were going to be rooting against from now on.

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