How to Zone Out for Forty-Seven Minutes (or Thirty-Eight if I'm late and feel like living mildly dangerously.)

Ever have the radio on in the background and hear a song, but you don't recognize it? Then after you listen to it for a more couple seconds, you realize you do recognize it, you just didn't know what part of the song was playing just then. Then you find your place and sing along and all is right with the world.

I've been through that scenario many times. It's scarier if it happens to you when you're driving.

You're just driving along, paying attention, but not really paying attention. Your mind is just wandering in and out of different streams of consciousness. You might think of what you have to do that day, like going to the bank, then you remember the time when you went to the bank with your dad to deposit your money for the very first time, then you remember that plastic wallet you kept your money in is a souvenier from New York, then you think about how New York has a lot of people and traffic.

Then you remember you're driving. You look around and you have no idea where you are, but you know you haven't turned. It's scary for nine milliseconds, then you realize where you are and what part of the drive you're on, and your relax back into thinking about plastic wallets.

I've been driving back and forth to Scaginaw for seven months now, and it's getting monotonous. Sometimes it's nice, because then I have time to think about anything and decompress, or I can practice my singing exercises because that doesn't require me moving my concentration away from my driving. Other times it's crappy, because I've just gotten up, or just gotten done with a day of filing (another tedious act) and all I can think about having a long way to go before I can start doing something to keep me awake, or sit around and watch TV with my mom.

Dad is even worse off. Oftentimes he doesn't finish with his hospital rounds until 10:00, and doesn't make it home until 11:00. Mom is trying to convince him to get an apartment. She'd rather drive to Scaginaw in the late afternoon when she gets out of work than have Dad make the drive when it's dark and deer bombs wait in the bushes to ambush unsuspecting SUVs.

As for me, I would drive all the way home. We have a house. I'm gonna use it dammit!

There I go again. I had a point to my story, and now I've lost my spot.

Here it is.

• <- My Spot (corny, I know.)

Anyway, I was just wondering if that panic attack when you don't know where you are, even though the rational part of your mind knows where you are, has happened to any of you guys.