Riding shotgun

Riding shotgun

“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” —American comedian George Carlin (1937-2008)

I knew something had shifted when I saw it outside a Wingstop.

There was nothing remarkable about the scene on its face. Engine idling. Noontime light bouncing off windshields. A guy came out carrying a paper bag that announced, in bold green lettering, that somewhere inside were garlic parmesan wings and, presumably, a handful of napkins that would not be enough.

He walked to the passenger side. Opened the door. Got in.

And the woman behind the wheel — girlfriend, wife, who knows — pulled out of the parking lot like this was the most natural thing in the world.

Which, of course, it is now.

But it didn’t used to be.

Now here’s the thing — I’ve been seeing this for a couple of years. In grocery store lots. Outside restaurants. At stoplights where you glance over without meaning to. Women driving. Men riding. It’s not new.

But for whatever reason — maybe it was the wings, maybe it was the light, maybe it was just the mood I was in — it struck me this time.

Not as a one-off.

As a shift.

There was a time — not ancient history, mind you — when the driver’s seat came with expectations. The man drove. That was the deal. Didn’t matter if he knew where he was going, didn’t matter if he should have turned three blocks back, didn’t matter if he was white-knuckling it through traffic like a man trying to land a plane. He drove.

The woman rode shotgun, occasionally offering directions that were either ignored or interpreted as criticism, which led to a whole separate category of arguments that filled many a quiet evening drive.

It wasn’t written down anywhere. Nobody passed a law. But it was understood.

And now?

Now I can stand in a Wingstop parking lot for ten minutes and see it happen three times without anyone batting an eye.

Women driving. Men riding.

No ceremony. No commentary. No sense that anything unusual is taking place.

Just: “You driving?”

And off they go.

The thing about cultural shifts is that they rarely arrive with a press release. There’s no official announcement that says, “Attention: As of today, the long-standing tradition of the man driving everywhere has been quietly retired. Thank you for your participation.”

It just fades.

One day it’s a thing.The next day it isn’t.

And somewhere in between, a guy walks out of Wingstop, opens the passenger door, and doesn’t think twice about it.

Now, before anyone thinks this is some grand sociological awakening, I should probably confess something.

I’ve lived this.

Years ago, in my own marriage, there were plenty of times my wife drove and I rode. Not as a statement. Not as a negotiation. Just because it made sense. She knew the route. I was tired. She grabbed the keys. We got where we were going.

No one filed paperwork.
No one questioned my manhood.
No one pulled us over to ask what exactly was going on here.

We just drove.

Which is probably why this whole “shift” happened the way it did — quietly, practically, without anyone making a fuss.

You could make a practical case for it, and you’d be right.

These days, driving isn’t some symbolic act of leadership. It’s a chore. It’s traffic lights, construction zones, merging lanes, roundabouts and diverging diamond intersections designed by people who clearly hold a grudge against humanity, and a “recalculating” GPS voice that calmly informs you that you should have turned left 200 feet ago.

Whoever is best equipped in that moment takes the wheel.

Maybe she knows the area better.
Maybe he’s tired.

Efficiency has replaced ego.

And if we’re being honest, there are a lot of guys out there who are just fine with that arrangement.

Because the passenger seat has quietly become one of the last remaining places where a person can sit, look out the window, and not be responsible for anything for a few minutes.

No decisions.
No directions.
No pressure.

Just the hum of the road and, if you’re lucky, a fry or two sneaked out of the bag before you get home.

That’s not surrender.

That’s relief.

Of course, there are still holdouts. Every now and then you’ll see a guy gripping the wheel like it’s a matter of principle, navigating a simple left turn as if the honor of his ancestors depends on it. And maybe, for him, it does. My late father-in-law was one of those.

But more often than not, the wheel has changed hands, and nobody seems particularly bothered by it.

Which is what makes it interesting.

Because the story isn’t really about driving.

It’s about how a lot of the old, unspoken rules have loosened their grip. The ones that said who was supposed to do what, and when, and why. The ones that people followed not because they made sense, but because that’s just how it had always been done.

Now?

Now people are just figuring it out.

In real time. In parking lots. Over takeout wings.

Not perfectly. Not always gracefully. But with a kind of quiet pragmatism that doesn’t leave much room for ceremony.

The world didn’t end when the keys changed hands.

Nobody lost their identity. Nobody called a meeting.

A couple got their wings, got in the car, and went home.

And somewhere along the way, without much fuss, something that used to matter just doesn’t anymore.

Which, if you think about it, might be the most interesting part of all.

Vilas County News-Review freelance columnist Eric Johnson can be reached at eric@fyinorthwoods.com.