Stupidity is a moral choice. Or an immoral one, if you please.

Highly educated people can be stupid. Seemingly, the more education some folks have, the stupider they choose to be. Yeah. stupidity is a choice.

Some of the least educated folks I’ve ever met, Tejas ranchers, have been among the smartest folks you’ll ever have the pleasure to know.

That’s why I think there should be a penalty for stupidity. Stupidity should hurt.

In six decades I’ve never seen an example like I once saw in Maryland.

They Tore Up the 270

I lived in Maryland and commuted into Virginia to perform my role as one of the impotent consultants for a Beltway Bandit. We were all impotent. We all knew it. DC is the most impotent city in the world. And if you aren’t a lawyah in Washington, D.C., you don’t even get to be impotent. You’re just ballast.

Part of the daily degradation of Beltway Bandit impotence was the commute. Since only the top lawyahs, diplomats, swamp creatures, and insiders could actually afford to live near their work, everybody commuted. Everybody.

When Maryland decided to turn a living nightmare into a living hell by tearing up the 270 going from Maryland into the 495 Loop. What had been a 45-minute slog at a snail’s pace became a congested hour and a half if you happened to get caught between 7:00 am and 8:00 am as the last stragglers of the rush hour.

Rush Hour lasted from 6:00 am until 9:30 am. Afternoon Rush Hour started at 1:30 pm and ran until 7:00 pm. I never figured it out except it was obvious, some of those fancy lawyahs weren’t putting in a full day.

On one of those “I-Hate-My-Life” mornings, I was trapped in the morning parking lot on the 270. I had just passed the Shady Grove exit, moving south seven feet at a time and holding, stationary, for a full minute at a time. I knew this dance. I didn’t fight it. Struggling just made the devil happier.

The four lanes funneled into two, with jersey barriers on either side. On the right was a construction shoulder composed of torn up asphalt and leftover gravel. The other side of the jersey barrier was nothing but dump trucks, gravel, workers doing everything they could to avoid work, and an endless line of idle machines intended, in their origin, for construction.

It’s Always the Guy Behind You

I was worried about the guy behind me. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the traffic. I was worried that he would run into my rear-end through inattention. So I was very careful to slowly apply brakes after each seven-foot creep to the front. Still, I watched my bumper buddy in the mirror, willing if I could, for him to avoid hitting me.

As I was stopped, waiting for the next seven-foot advance, I caught a glimpse in my right rear-view mirror of something that looked like a stampede. The dust cloud rose from the gravel and detritus of the shoulder. I thought the Four Horsemen were coming.

At the same time, my rear-view driver seemed to feel crowded. I could see him looking around like he was a trapped rabbit. I thought I was doomed.

Just as I inched to the full extent of my current seven-foot allotment, my bumper buddy turned his wheel hard right and stomped on the gas. He missed my bumper by inches and drove like a maniac down about 50 feet of shoulder; immediately slamming on the brakes and fishtailing to a stop two cars ahead of me.

At the same time, a blue van, illegally tearing down the shoulder to avoid the rest of us came into view in my rear-view mirror. He was causing the stampede-like dust cloud, throwing gravel in his wake; and he started fishtailing to a stop — like the sedan had just before him.

A Gentle Highway Kiss

The blue van couldn’t quite stop in time – just bumping the white sedan enough to cause the driver’s head to gently rock back and forward and then back again. It was a gentle highway kiss.

As I inched forward through my next seven feet, the driver of the sedan opened the door and stepped out of his car; and with one motion put on his smokey bear Maryland Highway Patrolman’s hat and cinched up the strap.

This Was Gonna Hurt

As the Maryland Trooper looked toward the driver of the blue van, I passed the scene across my next seven feet. The look on the van driver’s face was priceless and worth every minute I ever spent in Washington, D.C. traffic.

I knew, that day, and for that driver, stupidity was gonna hurt.