Sleepers need not apply.

With 3 days left before I hit the road for yet another cross country trip to California, I look back on my other road trips.  While I’m doing this one on my own, and just driving straight through with no fun touristy stops, I’ve driven I-40 more times than needed to stop and see most things along the way.

One of the most important things in a roadtrip is the shotgun.  Not an actual gun, obviously, but the person riding in the passenger seat.  I’m pretty picky when it comes to my shotgun, because I know that I can entertain myself on my own if it were a solo trip.  Windows cracked, stereo loud, and belting like a pop star… you get the idea.  But I wouldn’t inflict that noise on anyone, so this is pretty much out of the question when there is another person in the car.  The exception being if you can turn the stereo up loud enough to drown out both of you.

Anyway, I’ve come up with a few rules for the next time someone graces my other seat for a long ride:

1.  You can not be a sleeper.  This is a big one.  Having a shotgun takes away the ability to keep everything you need piled in the front seat- food, CDs, purse, etc.  If you’re asleep, you can’t get any of these things for me.  I also have to have the radio turned down, and my entertainment options become very limited.

2.  No smelly food.  There are some foods that don’t belong in cars.  Period.

3.  Do your job.  My shotgun has three jobs- personal assistant (getting things from my purse, making my food, etc.) temperature control, and radio scanner.  If I’m driving your ass across time zones, you can do this.

4.  Radio scanner is one of the more important jobs.  My shotgun has to know the difference between a good song and a good radio station.  If you find a good station, leave it.  Yes sometimes this station may play a song by your srch-nemesis Chris Brown.  But sitting through 3 minutes of a song you don’t particularly care for is better than scanning through every other station available.

5.  Okay, maybe there is another job.  Direction reader.  Read off the MapQuest sheet.  The words, “Well, we were only supposed to go .3 miles, so we may have passed it.”  should not come out of your mouth 4 miles down the road.

6.  The right conversation-  The conversations that happen on a road trip fall into three categories- “Things you would never normally talk about,” “fluff,” and “would you rather?”  Road trips are not the time to discuss your opinion of the stimulus bill.