Freaky Feet On The Freeway

I don't know about the rest of society, but I have this thought that speed limit signs on the side of the road are basically 'guidelines' for what the speed minimum should be. I mean, if the sign says 70, that's the governments way of saying "we're short on money, so we'll charge you a special tax if we catch you going faster". If I see someone doing the actual speed limit or under it, I think of them as someone to pity. They are the ones who think the drive is the adventure instead of the cool things you see when you get to your destination. I play a math game and always do about 10% faster than what the sign says. Yes, I drive too much when math games become normal.

Near Billings, MT, I was driving east on I-90 doing my customary 10+ over the speed limit when I see what looks like a caravan of stupid people driving well under the speed limit. They were going just slow enough that I thought there might be something interesting to look at - you know, roadkill hit so hard that it landed in a nearby tree, car fire with people running around on fire, you know, all the things that we say that are horrible but when we are driving, become the thing we look for to break up all the monotony. (Oh, sure, some of you are saying that you never would think that was something good to look at, but then tell me why NASCAR is the number 1 sport (its not a sport people) and its not because you wanted to see how well they can take a left turn, its for the horrible accidents.)

Anyway, These cars are doing half what I am so I get into the left hand lane and drop my speed back to something that would be considered 'reasonable' which means I was still going faster than them. I get up close and I don't see anything going wrong and just keep on driving, still looking for this horrible accident or whatever. As I continue not to see anything interesting, I decide I should just merge back into the right lane and punch it back up to normal cruising speed of mach 2. When I looked out the right window, I finally found out what people were going slow for.

This...

There is this monstrous ostrich running as fast as it's little freaky feet can carry it down the middle of the freeway staying perfectly in the right lane where I couldn't see it until I was passing it.

I'm no saint. Yes I have inhaled. Yes I drank the Kool-Aid, but that was a long time ago. This was not a hallucination, but I still had that total surreal feel as I look out the window and see this 6 foot tall bird hauling ass. Just after I passed it, it ducked behind my car, ran into the median and all I could think of is "wow, that's going to be an interesting story if someone hits it and has to call that one into the insurance".

For about the next 100 miles, I kept having the feeling it was going to happen again, but it didn't. I haven't seen it since. I think that's a good thing because I may need therapy if I look out the window and see Big Bird making good time on the freeway.