A slice of motor vehicle operation legend.

Picture yourself behind the wheel of your personal vehicle, family car or SUV you felt the need to purchase for the daily commute to the office. You might be making the morning journey to work. It might be a trip to the store you are on. Maybe you are heading down to the beach to check out the new season of sexy and imaginative swimwear fashions. It doesn't matter where you are headed, just that you are on the road and behind the wheel.

Slicing... no, make that sliding in front of you as you drive is someone behind the wheel of their personal vehicle, family car or SUV they felt the need to purchase for the daily commute. Yet, something about them makes them very different from you, even though you would logically think that if two people are on the same road at the same time then they are the same as well.

Periodically, they tap their brake pedal. It may be every three seconds or every 2 minutes, but after a while time doesn't matter. Their behavior becomes hypnotic and distracting at the same time. They tap the brake pedal, their brake lights ignite and you instinctively tap your own or at least make sure you can reach your brakes in case they actually stop instead of just...slowing...slowing...slowing...down.

What this individual in front of you is doing is called romancing the brake pedal. Yes, look it up. The fascination starts with either hovering their foot over the brake pedal at all times, perhaps their free foot, perhaps with the one that belongs back on the accelerator. Then it progresses. They feel the need to test their brakes every few seconds to make sure they are responsive. They begin to switch back and forth between the accelerator and the brakes. They might speed up a bit, using that accelerator, but it is the brakes that keep drawing them back... they are so dreamy... and they can't rest their foot, it needs to keep busy and it knows where the brake pedal is.

The nervous tension of this driver can be cut with a knife as well as with the kind of sterling silver cake slicer that comes in its own soft furry bag. Are they nervous? Is that why they keep tap... tap... tapping that brake? Or is there something else... a history between driver and brake pedal? No one really knows. No one has ever been in the car with these people. Or have they?

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