At this point I realized I’d either developed some James Cameron super 3D floaters, or I was about to have my own Chris Farley in Tommy Boy moment.

It buzzed back in my vision and hit me in the cheek. I shrieked and took both hands off the wheel to swat at my attacker. It landed on my left boob, which led to more screaming, and the second I looked back up, a high-pitched skid as I slammed on the brakes and missed the bumper of the car in front of me by a millimeter.

Freaking out that nature’s winged beast was now affixed to my chestal region and apparently attempting to breast feed, I pulled a hard right into a parking lot, nearly flattening an old lady leaving Grower’s Direct. I glanced back down and yelped, “What are you doing, bug? I’m not freaking lactating. Get…,” I plucked at the fabric around it, trying to trampoline fling it at the windshield, “Off!”

I thrust the car door opened and flew out, jumping up down whilst flicking at my teet. I hopped about squealing Beaker meeps that happened to create a nice harmony over The Pointer Sister’s “I’m so Excited” blaring from my open vehicle and adding to my embarrassment.

Finally, the mutant surrendered its calling as the world’s smallest breast pump. It spread its wings to fly toward some other unsuspecting driver. It was at that moment when I noticed its red and black pattern.

Sweet Jesus, I thought. I almost crashed my car, hit an old lady, and gave myself a public breast exam over a ladybug.

But in my defense, they really are creepy little insects, especially when they’re trying to milk you. It was definitely not baby sized so there’s just no excuse. It was large, which begs the question: Was it a lesbian ladybug? Obviously so.

I’m telling you, do not let the name fool you. Do you think it’d be any less to disturbing to find yourself driving along in your car only to have a gentleman worm drop down on your lap?

You think you’d just keep cruising down the highway in your Camero, the T-top open, your skullet blowing wind, as you act like you don’t care that an episode of Fear Factor is taking place on your cod piece? No, you’d probably crash because only the name of the sick creature and not the reality of it is a euphemism.

Your crotch-diving gentleman worm would not sport a little bow tie under his slimy neck any more than my ladybug donned a bonnet. It was not a lady. It was a bug. And it attacked me.

So stop trying to make me feel like a freak for calling this ladybug what she really is and that is Anxiety Activator number sixty-one.

I must take some responsibility for deciding not to get all Tokyo Drift on your ass and instead opting to slow down and maneuver in behind you. Really, it’s my fault I spent the next five minutes of my life lurking in your exhaust fumes as I waited with growing rage for you to move forward just enough so that I could finally make my way around you and into the left turn lane.

In your defense, you were flashing some flagrant warning signs that should have alerted me to my mistake, but in my defense, I couldn’t see them until it was too late. Why does the clutserfuck-o-clues that a senior citizen home escapee is behind the wheel always have to be displayed in the backseat? My fate is sealed by the time I lay eyes on the catalog of crap nesting in the rear window.

It’s like a whole SkyMall, AARP Edition exploded in my face. What is that, an electric ear hair trimmer smashed between your World’s Best Grandma mug and a heart-shaped needlepoint craft that may as well say, “My other car is a gurney”? Damn it to hell, I do not need to think about that when I’m screaming obscenities at you!

You had it all: the box of Kleenex in case you sneeze whilst driving and suddenly acquire the Go-Go-Gadget arm superpower to reach all the way into the trunk area for an emergency snot rag, the backseat parade of Beanie Babies and other children’s toys that make me wonder if I’ve seen your license plate on an Amber Alert, and the standard lack of upper cranium where a cranium should ALWAYS appear above the driver’s side headrest of all MOVING vehicles.

I want to apologize for repeatedly slamming my forehead into my horn until you pulled over at an ever-accelerating rate, topping out at a shocking seven m.p.h. I didn’t mean to scare you, but for the love of God, there is nothing more frustrating than The Red Light Slow Roll, especially when it starts during a yellow light. Just get up there already! You do not need to leave forty-seven car lengths between your front bumper and the crosswalk. Why must you torture me?

Stop-and-go traffic is bad enough when it involves actual traffic – it is uncalled for when we are only two of eleven cars on the highway. And, really, five of them didn’t even count because they were piled on a dealership truck trailer. That counts as one vehicle! There should never be traffic in a six car situation. Never! I don’t care if Jenna Jameson is getting a mustache ride from a transgender midget on the side of the freeway. You take a gander and you move it along. You don’t creep down the road at negative speeds.

Are you some kind of auto erotic sadist or are you just suffering from the world’s worst depth-perception problem EVER? I do not understand what your deal is.

Did you once fail to break in time and annihilate a crossing guard and half the student body of an elementary school? Did your antenna spear some poor fifth grader, the Jack in the Box head bobbing out the other side of his gored neck? If so, I apologize for screaming at you. I could see how that would be pretty upsetting. I’d probably have some residual PTSD myself if I’d witnessed your classic old-person-confusing-the-gas-for-the-brake scenario; good God, it must’ve looked so much worse through your crazy bifocals, especially if they were those giant, black cataract sunglasses. You know that shit has some 3-D action going on. Why else would the elderly walk around feeling up walls in those things?

So I guess, maybe, I shouldn’t've stuck my head out the window and shrieked all the various things I would’ve liked to do to your car if I’d had a canon and an unlimited supply of bowling balls. That was wrong.

Maybe you read that a driver should leave room to flee in case a carjacker Hamburglars up to your window. But I gotta warn ya, Grandma, the combination of your paranoia and my road rage is more dangerous than any thug’s attempt to hijack your sweet ride.

What I’m trying to say is, I know it was wrong of me to let out howls of maniacal laughter as I imagined what I’d do to you if I had access to a monster truck, specifically the Gravedigger, as featured on the recent episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O’ Brian where the driver obliterated the world’s largest pumpkin.

Thinking about revving that super-powered engine untill your Rascal shook loose from your trunk apparatus made me giddy, but not nearly as giddy as imagining slamming the beast into reverse then charging forward, launching over your felled motorized cart, and landing on top of the roof of your car.

I feel guilty for thinking these thoughts and I need you to know I would never injure your person – only your car. But I guess you have no idea any of this happened anyway…because you were missing your HEAD!

Perhaps I should’ve addressed this to the owners of the presumably nearby Sleepy Hollow Nursing Home. If you’re reading this, will you please invest in a shuttle service for your residents before I invest in a hood-mounted paintball gun for my car? Fantastic. Thanks so much.

But lately, this tendency toward overusing unpalatable metaphors has reached proportions I can no longer tolerate. I’m talking about the casual use of the term “shitload” in English conversations.

Oh, you think it hasn’t pervaded our vernacular? Just begin typing a search for “shitload” and the google dropdown menu automatically supplies an extensive list of the various shitloads people are all abuzz about. This directory ranges from “shitload of homework due Monday,” to the oddly popular, “shitload of dolphins.” I don’t even know what you’re talking about because now I’m distracted by a vision of God pooping chocolate dolphins into the ocean.

Please note that some of us cannot control our involuntary brain spasms that occur when people speak. Your words are automatically turned into captions below disgusting illustrations that make up the most inappropriate children’s book ever created.

When you tell me that you’ve just eaten a shitload of deviled eggs, I immediately see a vision not of a large quantity of paprika-coated yolks, but a giant toilet overflowing onto a scale that has the phrase “SHITLOAD” where the numbers should be.

Sometimes I see a giant dump truck backing up and it gets so bad I can even hear the reverse warning beeps. The bed is tipping up, up, up, and out comes your load of shit. I’m not even going to mention what I see when you use the term “fuckload.”

If you insist on employing random, mismatched metaphors, could you at least try to come up with something a little more visually agreeable?

Why not go with the pleasing mental image of “a Costco platter’s worth” or perhaps “a frolicking puppy load,” as in, “I just macked down on a Costco platter’s worth of wings at Hooters. Damn, bro, we saw a frolicking puppy load of huge tits.”

See how much more appropriate that is?

I paused, mid-swallow, and thought to myself, “No, surely root beer cannot attack as well. Was shattering my illusions that I might safely one day snuggle with the cutest Zoro-masked furballs in the rodent kingdom not enough for you, God?! Must you now taint my favorite non-Mr. Pibb soft drink with images of death, too?”

I considered the caps lock warning, hoping the only reason my root beer bore a disclaimer was because some overzealous fetus-loving organization had won a lawsuit against pregnant caffeine addicts, but then I remembered…A&W isn’t caffeinated. 

At this point I decided I might as well see what new phobia I could add to my list of Things That Make Me a Pussy and was confronted with the single most horrifying tidbit of information I could have read: 

CAP MAY BLOW OFF CAUSING EYE OR SERIOUS OTHER INJURY. POINT AWAY FROM FACE AND PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY WHILE OPENING.

Fine, I thought, I’ll point it away from my face while opening next time, unless I’m wearing my onion goggles, but how in the hell am I supposed to point it away from my face while I’m chugging out of it?

This was only the first of many disheartening contemplations the admonition evoked. Not only was I disturbed that even root beer could force me to relive my formative days as the only girl on my preschool campus sporting an eye patch, but I was troubled by the fact that, apparently, my mother has a secret second job in copywriting for A&W.

Now every time I see someone selecting a soda in a vending machine, I’m going to feel the need to scream, “Stop! You could put my eye out with that thing.” And I was just celebrating the fact that no one had hit me in the eye with a champagne cork over the holidays. I’m so glad my embarrassing urge to duck and cover my face every time someone mentions they’re thirsty is going to last year-round.

Thanks a lot, Authority of Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. Don’t be surprised if you get an irate call on your 866 number when my Damnbien kicks in in another six to nine minutes. We’ll see who needs a warning then. Oh, we’ll see indeed.

As for diet advice, this hungry hypochondriac is pleased to inform you that adding horrendous amounts of stress to your life is a surprisingly effective weight loss strategy. Screaming at my laptop for the past seventy-two hours has proven to be a priceless means for forgetting to eat food. I’m pretty sure I will have met my weight loss goals by the time I am carted off to the mental hospital. 

At least I have you, sexy Santa. At least I have you.