Dallas and I had a 10-hour followed by a 6-hour drive from Feasterville to Florence to St. Louis for TI: St. Louis.    We left around midnight and began into the West as I’ve done a dozen times before.  He and I took turns driving and I found myself largely unable to sleep because of a curious dilemma: For Dallas to stay awake, the car radio had to be set at a level above what I could sleep through.  I drifted to sleep around 3 only to wake up at 3:32 AM in a metal scrapper’s parking lot with my partner saying “I need you to drive, now”.  So I did.

This was far from the first time I had taken a long trip in my car with someone and not even the first time with someone I didn’t know well but a part of my amygdala was triggered by having a not entirely known man next to me in a car, my car.  There are different ways drivers declare their space from the arrangement of items in a cup holder to how one adjusts the seats and each of these became a challenge to my right to rule my vehicle.  By the time I unwound this thread Dallas was asleep, I had my items arranged in my cupholder and I had won a fight that never happened with a foe that didn’t exist.

On to Kentucky.