How special do you need to be?

Hannah and I pulled up to school this morning behind a bright red brand new Hummer. It's so big that the two kids it disgorged didn't exactly climb out — they sort of fell out. Perhaps their family has a loading dock or a forklift at home to make it easier to embark. As it turns out, it was headed the same way I was — so I got to observe it for several miles and learned some interesting things about red Hummers:

• They don't need to stop for stop signs, even in a school zone.
• They have impressive acceleration, especially when there's a stopped car 100 yards ahead.
• Turn signals are optional, which saves on bulbs. After all, you have to economize where you can in order to afford such an outstanding vehicle.
• The horn is quite loud, all the better to inform the car ahead that the light turned green 53 milliseconds ago.
• The handling is phenomenal: this vehicle managed to oscillate across all three lanes of Seneca Turnpike at the traffic light within five seconds, making it eligible to turn both left and right at the same time. Even the oncoming cement mixer was impressed, and swerved to avoid it. It would have been a fair contest: the bumpers are all at about the same height.
• Double yellow lines are only for lesser vehicles, especially when you urgently need to pass a school bus before it stops halfway up the hill to pick up passengers.
• Hummers like to stop to ogle young women moving traffic cones around construction zones, even if it means that the school bus catches up. Unfortunately for the cones, Hummers can see young women much better than cones.

I was really starting to wish that I, too, could be so special, when it pulled into the Mobil station (cutting in front of an oncoming Nissan). And it dawned on me that my monthly car payment is less than it was about to cost Mr. Hummer to fill his tank.

Now that's special.