Superfluous Competition
I hate to admit it, but I am a fairly competitive person. I don't think of that as a necessarily attractive quality. But I am, in fact, competitive. Sure, with the normal stuff, like sports and games and the like. But I also make competition out of situations that aren't competitive. In fact, sometimes I'm the only one aware that I'm competing.

Take traffic, for example. I'm a cautious driver. I am a firm believer of safety first, when in an automobile. I do not make a game out of driving. But say, for instance, a car cuts me off, or I keep finding myself in traffic with the same car during a drive, it becomes a weird competition for me.

This morning I saw the same red Mustang on my drive to work that I see almost everyday. We start from the same neighborhood, and no matter what time I actually leave my apartment, I often see this same Mustang pull out either in front of, or behind me. I have no idea if he's noticed my fabulous black Jeep on the same mornings I've noticed his dirty, inferior Mustang. But when I see him, I have this sudden urge to beat him to work.

Of course, I have no idea where he works or who he is or if he's even going to work. He may be stalking me, for all I know. It would not surprise me, me being me, and all. He could wait every morning, watching for my Jeep to appear so he can take off in his Mustang and haunt me on my drive to work. He's one of those 'weavers' in traffic, where he weaves in and out between cars like he's a Nascar driver. He works really hard, but he never gets very far ahead of me. He seems to have not figured out that once you're in the flow of rush hour traffic, you're pretty much with the same cars all along your journey, until you exit the freeway and leave them behind. I give him props for his creative driving, but he annoys me, and therefore I must win.

However, I'm not sure what I'm trying to win. We don't have the same destination, but I can't help but try to stick as close to him in traffic as I can. If he gets too far away, I'll never catch him. Plus, I want to beat him as many times as possible during one drive. I'll pick a point up the road and make the best effort I can to get there first. I actually feel defeated if he makes it there before I do. But that doesn't happen very often. I make up the rules, and therefore I win more often than not. I'm an excellent competitor at whatever game I've made up to win. If he only knew how many times I've totally kicked his butt . . .

So, much like the superfluous Red Mustang competition, I have to admit that I had a really intense competition going on most of yesterday, having nothing to do with Red Mustang. As I watched the counter here on my blog yesterday afternoon, I noticed I was approaching the 700 mark. I became determined to reach 700 before the end of the night last night. 700 is a completely arbitrary number. It means nothing, except that it's cool to me to have had that many hits, most of them within the past few days. Of course, I have no control whatsoever over the point in time that I reach 700 hits. But the closer the number got to 700, the more excited I got, and the more I cheered on my blog. The blog, of course, is just sitting here. Not doing anything. Just being my fabulous blog.

I checked the counter right before I went to bed last night. It was at 699. I was SO frustrated!! Didn't it know it was supposed to get to 700 before bed time? I was telling it to get there. Why won't it listen???

At the last possible second before I absolutely had to get to bed in order to be rested and refreshed for my morning driving battle with Red Mustang, I clicked one last time on the site meter . . . and it said 701. I did it!! Yep, I showed them, whoever they are. I totally won.

What did I win? Absolutely nothing. What was the game? I have no idea. But I went to bed, relieved to have accomplished my random goal, and I slept well. Victory was mine.

Don't be frightened because I'm quirky. It keeps life interesting.

C.T.