The Seatbelt Shot

I have a pair of jeans with pretty tight hip pockets. This story ends with a call to action, so hang in there. I also have a mobile phone which I keep in my pocket most times - I don't have one of those clip things. I've had those belt clips before with 2 other phones, and they both broke. They both broke in the same way, too. Getting into the car. They would somehow catch on the edge of the seat or on the seatbelt buckle as I sat down, and it would snap the clip off. They should make mobile phone belt clips stronger.

I like to call them mobile phones lately, not 'cell phones'. I know that 'cell' is really short for 'cellular', but I don't know what 'cellular' means in relation to the phone. Does it mean it's a living, breathing thing? Mobile phone makes much more sense, because the key benefit of mobile phones is that you can take them with you. Well, that's the original key benefit. Now the key benefits of mobile phones are the ability to play music or set your lineup for fantasy football (nerd alert!).

Anyway, I was driving the other day and my phone was really uncomfortable in my tight hip pockets, and I wanted to get it out. Actually, I can't say if the phone itself was experiencing any discomfort, but my hip certainly was. But due to the tightness of the jeans and the lap portion of the seatbelt, I couldn't get it out. So at the next stop light, I unbuckled quick and pulled the mobile phone out.

The light turned green, and I quick shoved the phone into the cup holder and resumed driving. I'm a left handed driver, by which I mean I steer 95% of the time with only my left hand. I grew up driving stick shifts, so my right hand was often shifting gears and I was 'left' with only one hand free to steer. (I apologize for that horrible use of single quotation marks.) Also, steering with both hands is something only done by driving instructors, and driving students.

Needless to say, I needed to buckle up again. And this is when the cool thing happened. The cool thing happened, and I'm sure it has happened many times before, but for some reason I thought about how cool it was this time. I'm steering with my left hand, and my right hand reaches under the left arm, grabs the seatbelt, and in one swift motion, my eyes up on the road ahead, shoots the seat belt directly into the buckle. CLICK.

"Big deal", right? But think about it. Seatbelt buckles are generally perched on the end of a semi-rigid piece of plastic, or sometimes just on thick vinyl material. The flat part on the belt-portion of the buckle obviously must go squarely into the buckle. How do we do this without even looking, much less in a quick one-shot pull? Think of the spatial variance between where the belt is mounted and where the buckle happens to be angled that day. What if your hand bumps your hip on the way down? Even worse, what if you smash your hand into the buckle and pitch the fat part of your hand into the buckle? Now stop thinking about those things, and go take a drive. And unbuckle your seatbelt at a traffic light. Then, because you instinctively fear being unbuckled in your vehicle for even one second because of the Click It or Ticket campaign, go for it:

The Seatbelt Shot