Attention Student Commuters!!

Are you a College student who lives off campus, and has to drive to school every day? Do you find that it is bad enough having to negotiate the freeways without having to deal with that pain-in-the-ass car pool you’ve foolishly associated yourself with? Decided the savings in gas money just aren’t worth it? Well, don’t worry: although past issues of the your local campus paper have concentrated on advice for students in residence, you, the commuter, haven’t been forgotten!

Let’s face it. All in all, you’re a good person, but you have a bit of a shortage of well, let’s call it “understanding for others,” or perhaps the better word is “patience.” Whatever the case, you’ve had it with people complaining that they want to go home (even though you’re already in the car and doing just that), making unreasonable demands, and just plain annoying the hell out of you. Of course, you just can’t throw everyone out of your car (that wouldn’t be very nice). No, you’ve got to make these people want to leave. Remember, there are more of them than you, so you can’t just toss them out somewhere in Scarborough. Instead, you need to be the sort of driver that bothers your passengers so much that they jump out of the car somewhere on the 401, just to get away from you! With that in mind, here are some helpful tips to help you, the commuter, get along better (or get rid of) the people in your car pool.

1. Adjust your music. Loud and offensive works, but so does some old-time country and western especially if you sing along. Try singing to some Johnny Horton or Hank Williams Jr., preferably off-key.
2. Adjust your eating habits. Find the cafeteria that’s serving chili for lunch. Better yet, go to town at the hot dog stand or one of the Chinese food trucks. Get those offensive gases coming out of both ends.
3. Adjust your hygiene. Leave your car as filthy as possible. Stop showering in the mornings. Scratch yourself furiously while complaining about how “That bitch from last night must have had the crabs something terrible!”
4. Stop five times a trip to piss in the ditch, and once more on someone’s lawn in the suburbs.
5. Sing the theme from The Dukes of Hazzard, while making car noises and driving down the 401 at dangerously low speeds.
6. Inform the car pool that pants interfere with your ability to drive.
7. If they object to #6, drive erratically, hitting the brakes hard and often (this may also give you the opportunity to use the “stop short” technique, à la Frank Costanza). Claim you are being followed.
8. Tell the parking lot attendant that he can watch the girls in the back seat make out if he lets you park for free.
9. Slam on the brakes suddenly, scream “SNAKE!” and run from the car. Don’t return for at least an hour.
10. Stuck in traffic? Play “eye spy”, and announce the object you’re spying. Following that, brag about how much smarter you are than the rest of them. “I’m the # 1 spyer,” you could yell.
11. Take an unexpected turn, and then announce, “You don’t mind if we make a quick stop in Barrie, do you?”
12. Tell them you have to stop for a coffee, pull up to a Tim Horton’s, then get out and walk to the Second Cup two blocks away. Claim this is in order to give your coffee a chance to cool.
13. Begin speaking in the third person, while describing how you think women are inferior.
14. Turn off the heat. If they ask if it’s broken, say “No” in a tone indicating that there will be no further discussion. Or, “The Man doesn’t want the heat,” you could say, keeping the previous tip in mind.
15. Drink beer behind the wheel.

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