You're underway before you've buckled up, because the situation calls for moving fast. A lady needs a new place to be, and it's up to you to provide it. Moving at legal speed plus twenty percent, you still undertake more, because you can.

Anticipate the conversation, choose the music for her drive away; clear the debris that accumulates between emergencies from the passenger seat to the back. Pat that shotgun seat with affection for all who've ridden there - feet on the dash, or forehead; bolt upright, or curled like cats. Ladies who need to get out are the most individual creatures there are, but you can say you know some of what every one needs.

You feel your steering wheel seem to widen, to get the leverage you'll need, until you feel like you're driving the bucket truck from the fire station field trip in your youth. You turn it hand-over-hand around corners, inventing sirens in your mind, convince yourself that traffic clears for you.

There's no real need for sirens, and you know that - so does she. You won't be quenching fires when you arrive. You're not the kind of fireman that she wants on her calendar, that she envisions in a pose. She simply needs the engine, and something friendly to be warm with - something to lift her spirits while the situation plays out.

No surprise, as you think this through at long last, that you ease off the accelerator until you're back within your limits. Grip your normal driving grip on your normal steering wheel - snicker - and then hang out your tongue to mock your mind.

How could you do this a hundred and one times before you finally notice you're just the damn Dalmatian?