Road Rage Averted

I drove to work and thought of a story idea I had that I'll almost certainly never start. Kind of a chain reaction thing centered around road rage. I'll give you TMI for a minute...our AC is out, and Sears won't send someone until Friday to look at it.

Sidebar - Sears initially told us we couldn't have someone until July 16th. JULY 16TH!!! Our AC is new. I actually, for once in my life...because it was thousands and thousands of dollars, spent an extra thousand on a Master Service Agreement. For five years Sears gives me free maintenance and repair. We called them every day (my wife joined the fray yesterday) and got it bumped to July 12th...then July 5th...which is MUCH better, but it took 12 calls. TWELVE. For THIS...I paid those fuckers a thousand dollars. I'm so pissed off at Sears right now (this is not the first issue we've had) Anyway...

So it's hot and sticky (because we opened all the windows in the house) and I'm irritable, and the girls who come to watch Lily until the bus picks her up were late, and a friend of a friend came over to look at the AC just to see if there was anything he could do to fix it without Sears noticing and voiding the warranty. And so he said..."Come outside I want to show you something" and I hate leaving Lily alone for many reasons, not the least of which is related to THIS (click link if you wish), but I walked outside because this guy was doing me a favor and for no charge, so he showed me the thing that wasn't working that he could do nothing to fix and I thanked him and went inside.

Lily had taken my absence as tacit approval to have a potty accident on the couch...and it was the messy kind...and it's hot...and I'm frustrated...and so at the end of all that shit (literally) I'm finally in the car and the girls (just one today) are watching Lily and I'm driving to work and listening to Scars on Broadway and being at home in my anger...and I just think again about this story idea...the concept of which is that everyone is the hero from their own viewpoint and everyone else is the villain. And the idea was to take a very black and white 'incident' like a traffic accident...or something...and follow the story from different angles. 

And I thought of myself in the role of "victim" and then I thought of myself in the role of "villain"...and I could easily imagine in the frame of mind I was in...cutting someone off...or getting pissed off at BEING cut off, and driving to catch up...and flipping that person off...and things escalating (previous road rage link). And I realized...none of that shit has ANYTHING to do with me. The accident wasn't my fault (or Lily's, truth be told)...the AC wasn't the guy's fault...it's all unrelated. The only thing tying all that crap together is ME because I'm the one experiencing it, and if the story is told from MY point of view then the reader maybe understands why I was so pissed that I did something stupid...but if the story is told from the point of view of the other guy...who KNOWS what's going on in his life...same shit? Maybe. Maybe worse.


And somehow through that whole process of rationalizing it and recognizing the uselessness of it, I just...let it go. And I'm in a much better frame of mind.

Handling Stress: Road Rage

This morning I read a blog about a road rage incident stemming from a stressful back-story over at ProfMomEsq's aptly titled blog, "ProfMomEsq".  She was asking for tips and tricks to control your stress/temper, or in her words, "check yourself before you wreck yourself", which rhymes.  I linked the blog, so if you hover over it, you can totally click.  And you should, she writes well.


My own road rage issues have gotten considerably better since I had kids, primarily because I try to 'check myself before I wreck myself' verbally when the kids are in the car.  But I do still lose it.  And in the comments of her blog I told I'd tell the story about the time I was 'that guy'.  

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Me. . . blinker flashing. . . first to the stop by a mile.

Yeah. . . I'm going this way.  My blinker is flashing, see?

As I was waiting for my turn at the 4-way stop, a bitch (yeah, I said it) cut me off.  She was directly across from me.  I had my turn signal on patiently waiting my turn, and she went.  

Wait. . . what the. . .?

It was clearly my turn.  CLEARLY.  


I was. . . frustrated with her lack of courtesy.  To add insult to injury, however, as she passed me she began mouthing words to me through the window of her car and pointing down the hill to the right of me (I was trying to turn left when she cut me off).  I wasn't going to make a big thing out of it, until she started yappin' at me.  I was, though not content, at least willing to suffer the slight and turn once she passed me, until she opened her mouth.

My brain's immediate response when I saw her chirping at me was, "madam, I'm frustrated by your lack of courtesy and i'm irritated by your hand gestures and mouth movements.  I bid you, cease."  What I said out loud, however, at the top of my lungs, from inside my vacuum sealed sedan, was, "FUCK YOU, WHORE!!"  I pointed, so she knew that she was the whore I was talking about, because I'm all about clarity.


She passed, and I turned, content in the knowledge that she now was aware she was a whore who drives like shit.  I'm reminded of the old joke. . .


A man is driving his convertible up a long narrow winding mountain trail at top speed.  A woman is driving her convertible DOWN the same treacherous trail.  As the cars pass each other, the woman yells, "Slow down, pig!"  The man replies, "Fuck you, whore!" but is almost immediately thereafter forced to swerve to avoid an enormous wild pig in the road, crashing through the guardrail and plummeting to his eventual fiery death.  It's a joke typically told by women about how inconsiderate and ignorant men are.


Back to our story. . . 


As I turned my car left, I glanced down at my turn signal.  It indicated I was turning right. . . not left.  What the hell??  How did that happen?  I don't think I've ever turned my signal on opposite the way that I'm turning.  About the only way that ever happens is when A)  You change your mind about going one way and decide to go the other (but you know your signal is wrong) or B) when you make such a slight turn that your signal doesn't turn off automatically.  I had done neither.  For some inexplicable reason, I had my blinker going the direct opposite way I intended to travel.

The woman across from me, seeing that I was turning right, felt free to jump in line and drive through, since I would be turning away from her.  Once she saw I was turning across her, she (probably frustrated) pointed down the hill to my right, perhaps saying, "I didn't mean to cut you off, you signaled the other direction!"


So um. . . sorry about the whore thing, ma'am.  You were right.  I was wrong.  I apologize.


None of this really has much to do with ProfMomEsq's blog post requesting guidance regarding snapping your cap, but it is instructive to recognize that there's always a story, or a back-story when these things happen.  In this case, we have the benefit of being able to jump into the brain pan of the idiot driver (me) who flipped out on the person who did the right thing. . . because I legitimately thought *I* was doing the right thing. . .and in the heat of the moment I got all butthurt at the perceived slight and lashed out.


The idea that everyone brings their own baggage into each stressful encounter is always one that I *try* to take into consideration.  Bad day at the office?  Wife left you?  Sick kids?  All that emotional back-story gets dragged with us into each encounter until we finally lash out, fed up with all of it. . . but possibly to the person we lash out AT. . .it's out of the clear blue sky.


Anyway. . . I'm a dumbass.  But you knew that.  ;)