Speed Bumps

OHMYGOSH, I am sick to death of them! Speed bumps are everywhere, in multiples, in parking lots mostly, on neighborhood streets occasionally, irritating the snot out of me always.

Now, I understand the need for them: cars must slow down in parking lots to avoid accidents. Parking lots are especially dangerous because not only do they not have other real barriers that streets have, such as curbs and ditches, but they have potential pedestrians everywhere. They also are mostly on private property, which means that the police will not issue tickets for accidents thereon, and property owners may be held liable.

Without some kind of inhibitive barriers, many parking lots could be used for cut-throughs, allowing drivers to bypass intersections or longer routes. This use is actually illegal, but the reduction in the number of such abuses is due more to speed bumps than to traffic citations.

So there you go: I agree we need to go slow in parking lots, residential areas, school zones, etc. What I emphatically—nay, angrily do not agree with is using speed bumps for the task.

Do speed bumps achieve the desired result? Sure, I slow down. In fact, I come to an almost complete stop before letting off the brake to pass over the speed bump. It’s a little trick my husband taught me to lessen the impact of the speed bump.

Guess what. It doesn’t matter. Speed bumps put stress on my car’s suspension and, more desperately, on my kidneys. The jolt from each and every speed bump hurts and annoys me.

In the parking lot where the grocery store and video store are, the speed bumps are so ubiquitous that I will drive where I am not supposed to drive, just to avoid them. I will even decide not to go to the video store just because I cannot bear the speed bumps.

I pick up and drop off my daughter at high school almost every day. I have figured out the route which allows me to cross the fewest speed bumps. I still have to cross three of them, often four or five, if cars are parked in certain areas. That’s right, I cut across the parking lot—slowly—to avoid speed bumps. I do not endanger anyone with a threat of hitting a car or a person, but I will go completely out of my way to avoid speed bumps.

At my daughter’s high school, more speed bumps (one about every 20 to 30 feet) have been added recently because the teenagers drive so recklessly. Well, there’s an area for improvement right there: are speed limits not stressed enough in driver’s ed? Or, as in my daughter’s case, by the parents who teach their children?

I’ll save teen driving as a topic for another day. Here is my proposal for the speed bump terror: replace them with speed humps. I don’t mind speed humps at all. Also known as road humps and by various other monikers, these are broad speed bumps which still require slowing down to keep from going airborne, but are much easier on the suspension—and the kidneys.

In residential areas where speed humps have been installed, I am very grateful to see them! I slow down to a crawl and glide gently, gracefully, peacefully over them. Please, God, put these in place of all the speed bumps!

Another option, which I haven’t see done yet, is a speed ditch. Like an inverted speed hump, a speed ditch means scooping out a wide, shallow ditch to force drivers to slow down. Ditches would be cheaper than speed bumps because they would require only equipment and manpower, but not materials, e.g., a log of concrete. And “bottoming out” would be a great incentive for drivers to slow down.

As I mentioned before, I might choose not to go to a store because of speed bumps. If merchants knew that, wouldn’t they be up in arms to do something different? If commercial and retail property owners knew that speed bumps were a hindrance to customer traffic, wouldn’t they be on the band wagon too?

This is my mission: I will not stop until all of the speed bumps have been replaced with the kinder hump or the gentler ditch. Amen.

Movie Reviews

Pirates of the Caribbean

The Three Amigos

Office Space

13 Going on 30

Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the Black Pearl

Surely you have heard all the hype. Amazingly, the movie (I won’t call it a “film”) lives up to it. Not only did this reviewer fall madly in love with Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow, but Geoffrey Rush turned in an infallible performance as the evil betrayer, Captain Barbossa. Not much has been said about Rush, but plenty should be said! His every word is masterfully crafted to characterize the mutineer. Based, as you know, on the ride at DisneyLand and DisneyWorld, several scenes are recognizable. The story is clever, the special effects are eerie and credible, and the actors are well-cast. Not to be missed! 5 *****s out of 5 (I’m just a sucker for Captain Sparrow.)

The Three Amigos

An oldie, but a goodie. Starring Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short, this movie can hardly miss. Hokey, corny, and very funny. Hilarity ensues when silent film stars, known as the Three Amigos, are fired from the studio and are suddenly asked to come to Mexico to perform. Attired in their usual outrageous mariachi outfits, which they wear at all times, they arrive in a small Mexican town, only to find out that the townspeople believe they are actual heroes who will save them from the local gang! The gang is lead by the notorious "El Guapo," who is, of course, extremely feo, and they try to kill the Three Amigos! There is even an evening desert scene with a song worthy of Gene Autry. Grab the popcorn and snuggle up for a fun evening! At least 3 and a 1/2 ***s

Office Space

A very dry satire of the late 20th century high tech scene, this little independent film was a sleeper, which has now developed a small cult following. No-name stars, except for a small role by Jennifer Aniston, flesh out the story of a typical cube farm full of software engineers, idiotic corporate-head bosses, and a receptionist who repeats constantly into her headset, "Corporate accounting. JUST a moment," in the most annoyingly syrupy voice known to filmdom! The main character attends a fateful counseling session in which he is hypnotized out of complacency and into a devil-may-care attitude. He turns the workplace upside down and, along with his cohorts, develops a plot to get rich quick. A great sub-plot involving the nerdiest guy you've ever seen, Milton, ties in at the end to make it all work out. The next-door neighbor alone is a hoot! Very dry, very cool, very funny. 4 ****s or better

“13 Going on 30”

I was really looking forward to this one. It just looked too cute, and I expected it to be something like “Big,” which is a perennial favorite at my house. I love stories about time travel or parallel universes or fantasies like that, as long as they’re fun and not scary. Real life is scary enough.

I was not disappointed. There are some similarities to “Big,” but what surprised me were the similarities to “It’s a Wonderful Life.” As in “Big,” “13 Going on 30” involves a young person who makes a wish to be older and gets that wish! In both movies, the main character, a boy in “Big” and a girl in “13 Going,” wakes up to discover that the wish made the day before has come true.

The main difference in the plots is that “Big’s” Josh wakes up in the home and the very bed of his 12-year-old self. “13 Going’s” Jenna wakes up in what will be her future apartment with no idea of what her future self has become.

Thirteen-year-old Jenna Rink is a desperate wannabe in the 1980’s. She has just the right clothes, puts on the right make-up, listens to the right music—just like the “Six Chicks,” the popular girls at school. She’s best friends with Matt, her nerdy, overweight, but clever next-door neighbor. Jenna is a sweet girl who really loves Matt as her friend, but can’t see his adoration for her or his true intelligence. The Six Chicks are mean, of course, and every viewer knows Jenna doesn’t belong with them!

Waking up at age 30, Jenna discovers that she is a high-powered magazine editor at a fashion magazine in New York, and she and Matt long ago parted as friends. She looks him up and finds out about what happened in their past. Eventually, knowing what she has become teaches her about growing up.

Yes, the movie has some predictable moments and ideas, but it is carried out with such panache and hope and fun that the predictability can be forgiven. There are some great scenes—with Jenna at either age—which made me cringe, laugh, and cry. That’s right, I cried. Call me soft, I don’t care, crying was appropriate at the moment.

Jennifer Garner, who plays the grown-up Jenna, is absolutely adorable, darling, precious, sweet, and all those cutesy little adjectives. She is simply irresistible in the part, very fresh, very innocent, very 13. She pulls off the 13-year-old in a 30-year-old body beautifully. Not since Tom Hanks played grown-up Josh in “Big” have I seen that played so well. (Has it been played at all since “Big”?)

Mark Ruffalo, the grown-up Matt, is so endearing and self-deprecating that you just want to squeeze him. He is so utterly sweet. In fact, I realize that the whole movie is exactly that: sweet. Okay, it’s a little syrupy, but I loved it.

I loved it that the movie had the right ending. I would have hated to get to the end and find Jenna a dying old woman, who lost 17 years of her life and ended up with nothing but regrets. No, of course, the ending is perfect. The bad guy gets it and the good guys live happily ever after.

And it was the ending that said to me, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The whole point is that every decision you make and every action you take has an influence not only on your life but on others’. It’s a great message and it bears repeating. And I liked it just like my pancakes: in a pool of syrup.

Rating: Three and a half pancakes out of four. ;o)