Cinema on a student budget

I don't know if I've told you guys this, but I check people out in my rear view mirror all the time.

Not necessarily checking out, as in "Hey, hottie" (well, sometimes of course), but just checking out what people are doing in the car behind me, particularly at stoplights.

Think about it.

It's like the only free, somewhat creepy yes, but also legal, way to look at people while they think they're alone yet not doing something so terribly private or embarrassing that you'd really be intruding by watching them, without them knowing it.

(I sound like such a creep from that last sentence. But we're just gonna move on.)

And it's way more entertaining than the other things to look at while at a red light, generally speaking. You can look at the people in the cars next to you--but see, then they can see you looking at them and that's just totally uncomfortable--or you can stare at the light, or you can look at pedestrians if there are any. Pieces of trash blowing across the pavement. Meh. I've seen it already.

Really, when you think about it, the opportunity to stare at the person (or persons) in the car behind you is one that is seldom matched for its entertainment value in our society which is full of social boundaries.

So, briefly: I pull up to a red light, I come to a complete stop. And my eyes go to that mirror two feet from my face. I say "free show." And I strongly urge you to watch the ever-changing show on the magical reflective screen in your own vehicle (while safely stopped, of course).

Without being too creepy, like me in paragraph 4 up there.

Well let me tell you who and what I saw today in my RVM (we're calling it that now, FYI).

In a big ol' truck, probably twice the mass of my Lancer, was a guy with a hat on backward. He had glasses on--points for him, hello--but really I thought, based on the truck and hat, that this guy was more of a, well, a truck guy, than a bookworm.

Well as I was watching him, he pulled something out of the console in his car. As he brought it toward his face, I thought maybe it was lip balm in a tube. Although it looked more like a tube of cold sore medicine.

It was nasal spray.

It was so adorable.

He sprayed it in his nose, put it back, and then turned his hat with the bill facing forward.

Now see, had I not creepily--really, is it that creepy? I'm just looking where any other person is free to look. There's a mirror there, I'm supposed to look at it for safety purposes--checked out the goings-on in my RVM, I would have missed that pinch-the-cheeks moment.

Oh, and when you're too busy staring at the person behind you and don't notice when the light turns green, then you get to see that person get mad. Which can be funny. :) Just consider it a bonus scene, the kind they throw in after the credits.