I was driving to work in the fast lane, freeway wide open. As I approached this white car it doesn’t move over. While I signaled to pass it on the right I observed two internal phenomena: a surge of adrenaline and a twitch in my left middle finger; both acting entirely without my consent. As if two daemons standing behind my eyes — one for my middle finger and one for my adrenal glands — pass their own judgments, subverting my authority. I should flip you off, Flip-Off-Daemon.

I finish this thought as I’m passing and look over. Obese. Red hair. Cut short. And Spiked. ON HER PHONE.

This disturbing imagery produced two more self-motivated characters: Mr.-Fist-Who-Punches-Horn and Flip-Off-Daemon’s twin brother who lives on my right hand. All four ordered an attack. Full scale mutiny.

The thought occurred to me: how many criminals are behind bars right now because they obeyed the orders of impulse? They joined the charge of their nervy, reckless, inward storms? As commander-and-chief, I wish I could sack some of my fight-or-flight strategists, architects of this road rage. I’m sure on a stressful day those tyrants are impossible to defy.

Still, get off the phone and out of the fast lane Sea Witch.

A really nice old couple walks around the neighborhood and stops to talk with everyone. The guy has this look on his face; like a mix between Santa Clause and Socrates. I’d trust him with my newborn. For all I know the guy beats his wife and drags her around to impress his neighbors, but one glance and you think he’s Gandhi’s inspiration. Can someone fake that? If you want to, like I do, here’s my neighbors mystic spell for the appearance of wisdom:

• Smile
• Be Kind
• Be Intelligent
• Optional: Be old.

I walk a lot with my head down. It’s not because I’m depressed, but because I’m tall and didn’t learn about good posture until I was getting a physical and the doctor noticed the problem. He told me to stand flat against a wall and then walk. But it was too late. I sometimes remember and then find a wall, but I mostly walk with my head down.

Walking like that provides an excellent view of three things: sidewalks, gutters and grass. Like a film critic or poetry professor, I know what I like in sidewalks, gutters and grass. Gutters I like to be clean, with no build up of sediment or weeds in the cracks. I also like when sidewalks don’t have weeds in the cracks, but I especially like when the sidewalk shifts over time, and then the city smoothes out the uneven edges with some machine – which I still can’t imagine how it performs such a function.

Most home owners are not sensitive to how their lawn looks to someone walking on the sidewalk with his head down. They usually keep it watered and mowed, but all the lawn mowers in the world won’t stop a lawn from raping a sidewalk’s perfect edge. It’s especially grotesque when you can tell the root system of the lawn is somewhere on top of the sidewalk.

That’s why when I was finished mowing my lawn for the first time with my $200 self-propelled Honda mower from Costco, I got in my car and drove to Home Depot to buy a trimmer. I got the $225 yellow and grey Huskvarna, not because I knew it was the best, but because it was the most expensive. But I soon realized why they’re called ‘trimmers’ and not ‘edgers,’ because no matter what angle you position it, or the handle, or your body, it’s impossible to create the perfectly parallel grass edge with a deep one inch divide.

So I made a return trip to Home Depot and bought the $300 four wheeled Briggs and Straton edger for the same reason I bought the trimmer. Twenty five minutes later I had the same perfect edge as all those lawns that I enviously despised because they had a better lawn then every body else.