Snippet #2549557

They had set off from the last truck stop about three hours ago. Most of them were still asleep...or at least not lucid enough to talk. Under normal circumstances, Kim might have berated them, scolded them for being lazy or uncooperative.

But she was tired too, and couldn't blame them. The paper coffee cup from the truck stop trembled precariously in its cup holder, the murky brown liquid sloshing about unpleasantly. Kim didn't like coffee very much, but on days such as today, when she was driving at the crack of dawn, she needed it.

"Exit 16B, 16B..." she muttered to herself, nervously checking the crumpled up MapQuest directions she'd printed out before they left Chicago. She had distributed copies to the others, but they needed their rest. God help her, if they started rebelling over lost sleep. She'd never survive.

At last the exit appeared on the side of the road...across four lanes of traffic.

"Crap! Crap, crap, crap..." Instantly shifting to 'panic mode', and already hopped up on overly sweet coffee, Kim did the only thing she could think of, and cut across four lanes of traffic, inspiring angry honks from other interstate commuters, but not causing any immediate damage.

Safely on the exit ramp toward town, she chuckled to herself, and said in a slightly louder voice, "That's a way to start the day, eh?" Figuring that at least one of them would have been woken up by her unseemly display of automotive safety.
-Kim