August 24, 2006
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If you’re going through hell…
keep going.
…Winston Churchill“Lucky I’ve been through hell
Backroads and shortcuts I know them well”
…Liz PhairThere’s road construction on my routes here in the Snatch. It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to pick my son up from his girlfriend’s house tonight. What a pain in the keister. Earlier it took me 20 minutes to get past the flagger on my road. And what the fuck is this: they’re waving for you to go on and get through there but they’re holding a sign that says SLOW. Which is it? You want me to hurry up and go slow? And quit gesticulating to indicate where you want me to go. There’s ONE LANE. If I can’t find that one lane I’m too big a moron to drive.
So I was the second car in line and there was a woman in a black wagoneer behind me. She was restless right from the time we stopped, had the door open, then had her foot out the window (which I do from time to time but not in a “you’re holding me up” kind of way). So when we went down the detour, a narrow, winding road I’ve never been on before, she was ON MY ASS. I gave her a little ways to back off before I hit the brake and yelled obscenities (they were good ones too).
I can be pretty zen about the whole driving thing, complete with construction delays and detours TILL SOMEONE WANTS TO CRAWL UP MY ASS AND INTO MY BIDNESS. I don’t ask for much. I stop for people in the crosswalk. I drive fast and stay out of the passing lane. I let people merge. But I swear to all that’s holy if you want to see me get aggressive and lose my shit… go ahead and get in my space. I go all apeshit crazy. It’s not pretty.
You can pass me. You can not let me into traffic. You can toodle along at 59. That’s a mild irritation. Give me my space. It’s mine. MINE. It’s my bubble, my Dignitas. Back off. I will cut you, man.
Comments (8)
I’m a bitch behind the wheel, but only if someone’s being an ass first. I let people merge, I don’t tailgait, I’ll even let the nervous old lady pull out in front of me. but if someone endangers my life, my kids life, or is just an all around toolbag? I let the finger and the obscenities fly. I wish I was more zen.
I think the biggest problem with drivers today is that they just do not pay attention to what they are doing. My big pet peeve is people braking on the highway for no reason, because they are too lazy to keep track of what’s going on ahead of them. “Oh, I’ll just brake every 3 seconds, even if the car in front of me is half a mile ahead. Then I definitely won’t hit them!” Those are the idiots that cause traffic jams.
Thanks for the link to “Dignitas”–cool concept!
it’s interesting, at least. i will slay you to keep my moral upstandinghood! those crazy romans.
i try not to drive like a dick, and i don’t cut any slack to people who do.
My first car was an ’88 Volvo, and I always tried to abide by the laws of the road. However, if someone near me should try and cut me off, or ride my ass, or anything else that threatened my sense of safety, I just kept on going. Kept driving at my own pace, wouldn’t let anyone else intimidate me.
If people were going to be assholes, then they could do that, because I was driving a big iron heap that wasn’t worth the cost of the tires it was on. It’s a shame I never got to take advantage of that – I might have intercepted a tailgater or two for ya.
keister… great word. I’m a shitty driver. I admit it. But I do give people their space.
This is a mountainous island, so when some dickhead is giving me grief I wait till we are going up a hill, then I do as you do, I hit the brakes (but only enough to make the lights come on), curse and scream and then when dickhead has to really slow down to avoid going into my keister (love that word), I roar away and little old dickhead won’t get out of first gear again until the next flat bit.
while this rant is literally true it also makes a pretty apt metaphor for my emotional state at the moment.
to add a (most definitely literal) final comment, on the way home from the dentist today, i’m in the fast lane on the turnpike, maybe four or five carlengths behind the guy in front of me (because we’re doing about 80) and i glance in the mirror and this fucker in a huge pickup (i have a civic, dude) is so far up my ass that i’m actually surprised he hasn’t hit me already. so i took my foot off the gas, and just let it coast, and he’s still finding room to close in (seriously, i had no idea the mirror was so skewed that someone could have that much of their vehicle in it without making contact.) and i’ve got my finger out the window, staring at him in the mirror, and managed to drift down to about 30 before he found a spot in the next lane to pass me. whips past, runs up the next guy’s ass… and gets stuck there. because, you know, the highway is full of cars. yeah, you really got far with that plan, fucker.