My Very Own ‘Do You Wanna Get Away’ Moment

So here is a bit of a funny story/reminder as to why it is usually better to not be overly demonstrative with your road rage.

It was Saturday morning and my turn to take my little girls to their dance class. We left in just enough time, and it was a beautiful spring morning. The first half of the trip was through a residential neighborhood, so we were having a relaxed drive and a fun little talk. About halfway there, we had to leave the neighborhood and make a treacherous left turn onto a very busy four lane road. There is a ‘suicide lane’, and I don’t know whether that is the official name for them or not, but that is how I have always referred to the center turn lane.

Now, judging from results obtained through my scientific powers of observation, I would say the following is not common knowledge: technically, cars entering the roadway via a left turn are not supposed to use the center turn lane as a layover on their trip to their final destination. Drivers are supposed to wait to make their turn until they can safely turn all the way through to their lane without stopping and waiting in the center turn lane to merge. But I digress.

As soon as there was an opening, I pulled out into the center turn lane and waited for an opportunity to merge. So did the gentleman behind me. I had not yet realized it, but he was about to violate one of the most sacred rules of the Greg Bussmann Driving Code. Specifically, Rule 1.001, Section A, Paragraph 1 of the Code which states that no driver, no matter how much more important his destination is than mine, can operate his vehicle in such a manner that he impedes my forward progress. In other words, he can’t do anything that would require me to hit my brakes because he is late. How does he know I am not? Is he really that self-absorbed?

Anyway, back to my story.

I was in the turn lane, looking in my mirror and I saw an opening, and I began to accelerate. So did the guy behind me, except, he’s not going to let me in…he floored it, and cut me off from merging. This was aggravating. I was momentarily blinded with a white hot rage, and as he flew by me I laid on the horn and threw my arm up with the one-fingered version of the peace sign. I also screamed a pretty bad name at him, kind of a hybrid of one of the grand-daddy bad words and a derogatory term for mentally handicapped people. The girls brought me quickly back with their crys of “oooooh, daddy said a baaaad woooord”. That led to a vision of one of them calling my wife that name thinking it was funny, and then…well, again, I digress. I realized I was flooring it to catch up with this jerk to make sure he had seen my gesture, and offer another if he had not. I struck me that, if for no better reason, having your children in the car is no time to be an aggressive, rage-impaired driver. But I kept a simmering eye on this guy as we wound our way to dance class.

At no time did it hit me as we were following him that it was odd that he kept making all the same turns we were going to make right before we made them. No, I take that back, it hit me right as I pulled into the parking spot two down from his in front of the dance studio. I had a fairly significant cardiac event as I watched him get out of his car and stand up, I swear he blocked out the sun. I know memory tends to remember things bigger than they really were, but he was 6’4 if he was a foot. Tall and wide. My daughter looked over at him and said, “hey Dad, isn’t that the guy you just…”. “Yes dear…that’s him”, I cut her off. I did not want to hear her six year old mind try to put into words what I had done back there. “That’s not cool, dude” she said. “Thanks hun, and you are right, it’s not cool. And what did we say about calling me dude?”

Well, what could I do? I did not want my kids to see me back down, and cower in fear, but I also did not want them to see me take a beating and cry. I got out, my mind racing as we headed inside, about 30 seconds behind him. I was preparing in my head what I was going to do and say in the event he confronted me, but I was also thinking surely this guy wouldn’t pummel me in a ballet studio. As I reached for the door to the studio, I said to myself that if he approached me, I was going to calmly point out that I stood behind my earlier opinion, that it is not cool to cut off someone ahead of you like he had to me. And then, if he started to throw down I was going to jump up as high as I could, punch him in the neck and run. That was my strategy.

Well, as I should have guessed, the jerk was too wrapped up in his own affairs to even know I existed, in the turn lane or in the dance studio. No, he was too self involved to notice any of it. That was a relief on one hand, and a whole new set of worries on the other.

But the bottom line is, be careful who you flip off out there, you never know when you will park right next to them 5 minutes later. And sooner or later, someone is bound to recognize you.