There are many reasons why I shouldn’t hold a driver’s license. I’m not a big fan of obeying traffic laws. I use the carpool lane when it’s rush hour because I’m impatient and usually late for work. I figure I can fabricate some sort of lie or excuse to justify my reason for being in the lane if I were ever to be pulled over by a cop. I run red lights at late night hours because I don’t want to wait and figure no one is usually around. I only stop at stop signs when I see another car coming; otherwise I usually treat it as a yield sign. So Yes, I’m a bad driver I know this. But here is my asterisk *; I only drive badly when it’s just me in the car. I don’t do this with passengers or when I’m borrowing someone else’s car. So friends don’t worry, your life or car is not in danger. In fact in those circumstances I am extra careful because you must always be better with other peoples’ things, which includes their bodies.
So the other day I was on my way to find a grocery store close to my work. I was waiting at a left run arrow behind a minivan and when the light turned green the van didn’t go. We sat there for a little while not moving, I thought maybe at first the driver was distracted by the pedestrian and was going to wait for them to cross but they can’t cross because our arrow is green. So I gave my horn a quick little honk. I mean I’ve been guilty of not paying attention when a light turned green. I was just giving a courtesy honk. The driver turned the corner and slowly started down the other road. I followed behind the van for awhile thinking that eventually the driver would speed up but they never did. So I got into the next lane over and sped up to the posted limit. If there are 2 lanes I might as well use the one without the slow minivan driver. We drove a few hundred yards in our separate lanes and I don’t know if this driver just snapped and decided I was somehow being obnoxious but I see in my rearview mirror the van start to speed up at a highly accelerated pace. Now I could have just ignored them and let them pass me by and hurry on their way being a jerk but this day I decided to also be a jerk. I blame my genetic tendency for road rage because I can’t even tell you how many times my Dad would chase cars down. One time my sister even followed a guy back to his house to yell at him. I lay on the gas, I decided that I wasn’t going to let this minivan be the only jerk on the road and that I wanted to join the fun too. So here we are on a 2 lane road in a business district going almost 70mph, Yes, I know completely unsafe but I wanted to see how far I could push this guy. We travel on neck and neck when the minivan finally pulls ahead and then cuts me off and starts to break. SERIOUSLY!!! I know I was being a jerk but did they actually want me to rear-end them? It would have been their fault and they would have had to pay the damages. I quickly maneuvered into the other lane they had just left vacant and avoided the accident. As I passed them turning off the road I laid on my horn and pulled out the bird. (Ok, I didn’t really do that but I did think about it. I might think mean thoughts but I don’t always act on them. Geeze people what kind of person do you take me for?)
What’s the point of this story? Well none really except I blame my father for my incidental road rage. After all my parents were my only examples on driving techniques. My Mom told me this story about a guy in a car that had made her mad so she did pull the bird on him and yelled F*CKER out the window. This story makes me laugh because my Mom doesn’t really cuss and imagining her pull this fowl gesture is somehow comforting that my isolated incidents are due to genetic programming rather than personal choices. It’s like those people that go into a blind rage and when they wake up they somehow forget they took a baseball bat to their ex’s car. I hope I don’t ever do something like that or decide to wear an adult diaper and drive half way across the country to confront a cheating boyfriend. But if I did ever snap I’d like to go crazy in a McDonald’s playground and take sanctuary in the ball pit where I could claim it my kingdom and enslave all the children to bring me fries and ice cream.
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