Carpool? More like poor call (almost an anagram)

I live far away from my office. I spend about $200 a month in gas alone. It would make sense to carpool with a coworker who lives close by, right? That's what I thought, until I was actually participating in this said carpool. How is it that I always attract the weirdos?

First off, Mr. Carpool, we'll call him, tends to leave earlier than I do. So I have to get ready a little quicker than usual because there's no way I'm getting up any earlier than I already do. We are meeting at a park and ride lot that I pass on my way to the highway, which is convenient, but it's a bitch to pull out of in the morning. We also now have to coordinate our schedules at the end of the day too. All in all, the carpooling makes me leave earlier in the morning and get home later in the day, as well as clutter my mind up with coordinating schedules. Annoyance level = 2 out of 10.

Second, Mr. Carpool is old enough to be my dad. This gets me thinking about all the movies and story lines that have stemmed from middle aged guys and young female coworkers and I was immediately uncomfortable. Now this scenario would never be possible and I gag thinking about it, but still, I don't trust people and I especially don't trust what people think. As we were pulling into work this morning, there were coworkers watching us, and I just know that people are going to wonder why we're driving into work together. And this guy has to say hello to everyone. He even stops the car to talk to people. Is that really necessary? No, it's not at all. Annoyance level = 4.5 out of 10.

Third, Mr. Carpool is a bizarre driver. Now, I know I'm no saint when driving, especially in traffic, but this guy is weird. He is constantly looking down at the speedometer (I think). Seriously, every two seconds or so, he glances down at it, but it's not a subtle glance with his eyes. No no, he visibly moves his head and moves his hand out of the way. (A) Stop looking at the goddamn speedometer, (B) Newsflash: you can move your eyes without moving your entire head, and (C) Don't put your hand in your line of sight if you're going to look in the same place every second. Who does that? Annoyance level = 8 out of 10.

Finally, on the way home today, we had the windows down for a bit and I was fine with that. I moved the window down a little further and he suggested that we put the air on in the car. That's fine, I prefer air conditioning. Haha joke's on me, there is no air conditioning, just the stupid fan set on the cool setting. This actually means humid lukewarm air is now blowing on me. Awesome. So now not only am I mentally uncomfortable, but also physically uncomfortable too! Double trouble! Annoyance level = 10 out of 10.

Oh, and I didn't even get into the conversation. It revolves around sports because I am a guy in that respect. Whatever, I can talk sports with people. Mr. Carpool is a Penguins fan and a Steelers fan. Fine, I can roll with that. The problem, he talks about the same shit over and over and over again. And he laughs at his own jokes, if you can even call them jokes. This just makes the other annoyances that much worse.

When I was driving it wasn't that bad since I had something to do. Being the passenger was the worst. Now I need to think of reasons not to carpool anymore. I mean there is a positive in that I can save money, but I don't know if it's worth the aggravation. We aren't carpooling the rest of this week because Mr. Carpool is unavailable tomorrow and I made up an excuse for Friday. I have an excuse for Monday lined up because I'm starting a Pilates class after work. I think I should just tell him it's not working out for me because it's adding time to my commute or something. I'm not good at telling people news they don't want to hear. And I have to work with this guy regularly so I don't want to piss him off. I really need to learn how to say no though. Oh well. That's my current drama and hopefully I can resolve it quickly.