I always got a kick out of watching television shows about how a person’s pet starts to look like its owner. Or maybe it is the other way around. Walking to the beach I grin when I pass a short stocky man walking a short stocky bull dog or a frizzy haired older woman holding onto her Pekinese.

Last Friday I was stuck in some slow moving traffic. As usual I would put on some soothing music and simply wait it out. Moving through traffic I noticed a large black Chrysler truck pull up beside me. I believe a truck of that size would have to be black. I don’t remember ever seeing a light blue Chrysler truck. Even though I was driving a pick up that was supposed to be high off the ground I still felt as though I was in a sub compact next to the monster truck beside me.

Inside was a man who also made me feel very small. He had his forearm leaning outside the window. Or at least I think it was his forearm. His arm looked as though it was twice the size of my thigh. Peeking into the cab of his truck I also noticed his head was twice the size of mine. He had a long black beard and was smoking what looked like a small tree. He was obviously annoyed he was being held up and looked as though he trying to find a poor unfortunate to torture in order to pass the time away. I looked straight ahead and hunched over hoping not to be the unfortunate of the day.

Inching away from me I noticed a large silver tool box in the cab of his truck. The cab was three times the size of my cab. Hell, I think I could have put my truck in the cab of his truck. In my mind’s eye I imagined the tool box filled with one of the unfortunate ones he picked on during another slow moving traffic day.

I then turned off my CD player and started to observe other cars that surrounded me and their drivers. To my surprise I had discovered another way of passing the time when time was stolen by an early summer traffic jam.

To my right I started to pass a small Volkswagen bug. Of course, it was brightly colored and had multiple stickers on its bumper and fenders. By the way, none of the stickers promoted the Bush / Cheney presidential ticket of the past election. Inside I saw an older gentleman bobbing his head back and forth to the music that was playing from his small computerized music machine that was attached to his head by white earphones.