A Margin of Terror

One should not make sweeping generalizations about people unless one has recently visited Italy, in which case one may assert under oath that every single Italian driver is under the influence of illegal drugs. There is no other plausible explanation for their vehicular insanity.

I took my wife Dale to Europe last fall so she could celebrate 25 festive years of being blissfully wed — to me, but by the time we were in the thick of Roman traffic I wished I had taken her some place safer, such as Chernobyl. Sure, the radiation may fry your internal organs into fast-food chicken nuggets and your hair may fall out in clumps the size of poodles, but at least you won’t be run over by a Vespa taking a shortcut through your hotel lobby.

Our worst transportation-related episode occurred when, in an ill-advised attempt to avoid a $50 cab fare, I talked my wife into taking a municipal bus on a sightseeing jaunt to the top of the Isle of Capri.

“The bus is practically empty,” I whispered to Dale. “It will be almost like a limo ride, only cheaper.”

She frowned.

“Well, maybe a limo with hard seats and no air conditioning and vast quantities of gum stuck on the floor,” she replied.

“Think of it as cultural ambiance, my love,” I said.

Regrettably, I did not realize that on that particular island the concept of scheduled bus stops had not quite made it into the transportation planning process. Any time any person anywhere waved down the bus driver, he let the person get on. This seemed quaint and even charming until about the 15th stop, when it became alarmingly clear that the driver felt a moral obligation to Leave No Italian Behind.

There were at least 40 passengers crammed into a bus designed for 20, and still the driver kept stopping to allow yet another batch of people to mash themselves aboard. We could not have been any closer if we were Siamese twins. When we reached the top of the hill we did our best to enjoy the breathtaking views, but in the back of my mind I kept wondering how we could possibly endure the trip back down the hill.

“Maybe if we tuck ourselves into a ball and roll, we can make pretty good time,” I mused.

Alas, Dale was not in an acrobatic mood. So we stood in line at the bus stop and watched as the driver invited the numeric equivalent of downtown Manhattan into his van. To visualize our return trip, imagine yourself on a single-lane road bordered by a sheer-rock wall on one side and a cliff that drops almost vertically to the sea on the other. And although it is a single-lane road, it is used by two-way traffic. As another van approached ours, our driver slowed to a sloth’s pace, pulled in his mirrors, sucked in his breath, made the sign of the cross, closed his eyes, and invoked the aid of angels. The two vehicles passed with about three hydrogen molecules of space between them. Our driver seemed genuinely surprised when he opened his eyes and found that we were not dead yet.

When we got back home to California, I had a new appreciation for the substantial safety margin that has been built into our roads and highways.

As believers, we also need a safety margin in our lives. We need it for our dating life, our married life and our thought life. So build it in. If I can use an Italian metaphor here, you don’t want the Vespa of your heart caught between the passing vans of temptation, thereby smashing you into the thinly rolled spaghetti of regret. Capeesh?