Drive Safely!

I had a road rage incident this morning!

This is SOOOOOO embarrassing.

I had to go pick up my wife from the auto service center and I pulled out of the driveway and headed down my road. The car behind me flew by me over the speedbump yelling and ranting and raving. Apparently I had cut him off when I pulled out of my driveway.

The problem is, if he had been going the speed limit, I really could not have cut him off. But if he was speeding – which he apparently was – then maybe I cut him off.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that I cut him off.

Because I did.

It’s not like I was in such a big rush. My wife was going to be at the auto center for a while, but I didn’t want her to wait any longer than necessary.

This guy, on the other hand, was going speeds upwards of 35 miles an hour on a road where the limit is 25 and we have speed bumps that require you to go 15. So him and his big Wilford Brimley face and his big beer barrel belly and his big black pickup truck decided they didn’t want to play by the rules this morning. So when he got the end of the street and he couldn’t go anywhere – because, this being my street, I knew there would be tons of morning rush hour traffic on the main road and he would be waiting there for quite a while (therefore there’s no reason to speed on the street because you can’t get anywhere and when you get to the end) – I honked my horn at him.

Loud.

For maybe five or six seconds, which seems like 30 minutes when it’s eight in the morning.

He didn’t like that too much.

He pulled across the street and jumped out of his car, hustling back over towards me to make sure I got an earful.

Now, since he was an old man with gray hair and a big belly and was kind of Wilford Brimley looking, I didn’t really want to get in a fight with him. I mean, can you imagine duking it out on the side of the road with the Quaker Oats guy over who went how fast over speed bumps? Come on!

Also, since he got out of his truck I could see he didn’t have a gun or anything, so I wasn’t really in fear for my life.

It’s been my experience that if somebody is going to yell at you, they have pretty much resigned themselves to yelling at you and not shooting you. (I could be wrong on that last part so don’t take that as a nugget of wisdom, just maybe good luck on my part.)

Anyway, after venting his rage on me for a few minutes and me venting mine on him, it was resolved that I cut him off because he was speeding and that he endangered the lives of every child on the street by driving excessively fast to a stop sign. Therefore negating his speeding and… I don’t know.  Whatever. There really was no point.

And that’s the point. Road rage serves no purpose.

Except to have a great story and dammit I wish I had videoed it on my phone because he was out of control. But he was like an Ewok! He was a big gray teddy bear throwing a tantrum.

Anyway kids, don’t try this at home. I was wrong and so was he and that’s the lesson. Both people can be wrong.

Maybe next time both people can be smart. I can be a little more courteous and he can be a little more patient and neither one of us have to yell at anybody because next time somebody will probably get shot to death. Not by me. And probably not by him. But by the idiot we end up yelling at who actually has a gun and decides they’re not up for arguing this morning.

Drive safely!