Owning the Road

I was in my car, approaching a “T” intersection when I spotted something I wanted to take a picture of. It was a bare, almost white tree sticking up like a giant skeletal arm and hand. The light ahead was red anyway, so I slowed down and turned on the camera in my phone.

I ran my window down and held the phone out to snap the picture. I knew it probably wouldn’t look good, as I had rolled too far away passed it, and I wasn’t holding the phone steady out the window.

A car had come up behind me by this time, and the driver honked his horn. Oops, I thought. The light, about 30 yards ahead, was still red, but I still shouldn’t have slowed down so much in the middle of the road. I was in the wrong, so I gave up on the photograph and drove on up to the light.

The light was still red when I stopped at the line. I was putting away my cell phone when the guy behind me blew his horn again. Crap, I thought. I looked up and saw the light had changed to green. But it must have just that second turned green, because the car in the lane beside me also hadn’t started moving before I looked up.

I thought, Wow, that guy behind me is in a hell of a hurry. I pulled on out just a half-second after the car in the lane beside me. The first time the guy blew his horn, I deserved it, barely. The second time, the guy was just being too impatient. I mean, come on: I held him up from getting to a red light faster, and then I was what, a second late noticing the light had changed to green.

As I got a couple hundred yards down the road, I thought I should pull over and just let the guy get past. I sure as hell didn’t want to hold him up another second. There was very little traffic on the road at that point, so I pulled off to the side to let him past. As he went past, he laid on his horn for a few seconds. OK, then he was just an asshole. I flipped him the finger, and pulled back onto the road.

A couple miles down the road, he pulled into the left turning lane to turn at an intersection. I continued straight, and I laughed well when I went past him and noticed the dozen or so cars ahead of him and the heavy traffic coming from the other direction. He’d probably have to sit through another red light. That jackass needs to learn patience.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com