You know easy it is to get to road rage, right? You don’t have to own a particularly nasty temper or a short fuse – you just have to, oh – I don’t know. . . drive a car. . . eventually, it will happen.
Say you’re driving on a country road, no cars anywhere. There’s a utility truck pulled off the side of the road about 50 yards ahead and a stoplight about 20 yards past him. All told, a pretty nice drive.
Until the utility truck decides he needs to get ahead of me at that red light and whips a u-turn to shoot in front of me and slam on his brakes. My purse flies off the seat and I curse in Disney language.
Since I am somewhat polite, I don’t do the clichéd finger-flipping and name calling and honking. Instead I shake my head while he watches me in his side mirror. I hope I am channelling the what-on-earth-did-that-get-you-buddy-I-am-so-disappointed-and-your-momma-would-be-too look. I continue to shake my head as he lumbers forward at the green light. And you know he’s lumbering, because really, what good would it do for it to be a fast truck that was worried about getting behind a little ol’ Dodge?
Oh, and I might add that I could understand his urgency if there were a pile of cars behind me. Nobody can be blamed for wanting to beat a long line of traffic. But NO, there was no other traffic. Of course not.
So in my head, I am running the litany of complaints about general incompetence.
After several miles the road became two-lanes. There was a car in front of me. I was parallel to utility man. The light, about 50 yards away, was about to turn yellow.
Oh yes, I took my chance.
Butted right in front of him like he did to me and coasted to a smooth stop in front of him at the red light.
I see hand gestures in my rear-view mirror and know what he’s saying, though I don’t think it’s sign language.
And it made me laugh. He saw me laugh in the mirror, and it made him laugh.
I stuck my hand out the window and gave him the finger. Okay, not really – I gave him a thumbs up. He returned with a thumbs up as well, knowing I’d technically won that little round of road sarcasm.
If only we could take all of life’s little annoyances and turn them into laughter.
