S claims I am one of the most even-tempered people he knows. It takes a lot to ruffle my feathers.
But get me behind the wheel of a car and all bets are off.
It takes me 1.2 seconds to go from calm, orderly driver to Pissed Off Bitch Behind The Wheel. I YELL at other drivers. I make rude hand gestures (but I keep these below the dash- I'm not a complete idiot). I LAY on the horn. I speed up and glare. I slow down and glare.
The other day, S and I were going somewhere and this VAN started merging into my lane. By the time I figured out they were trying to get over for an ambulance (we were side-by-side on a 5-lane road, the ambulance was coming TOWARDS us ), I had laid on the horn and called them every sort of bad name beginning with the letter F. What scares me most is that S swears I swerved towards the idiot next to me. I don't remember this. What I don't understand, and what I yelled at the idiot next to me, through my rolled-up window and his was, "why in the HELL didn't you SLOW DOWN and merge in BEHIND ME instead of gettin' all up in my lane and making me honk your dumb ass?"
Really. I know you're supposed to try to merge over for emergency vehicles. But we were on a 5-lane road and the need for him to get into my lane (when I was already in the space he was trying to occupy!) was unnecessary when he could've tapped his brakes and merged in. We were on a BRIDGE, ffs, and I had nowhere to go.
It was not a pretty site, this bout of Road Rage. Scared the shit out of S, too.
So. I tell you this deep, dark, ugly secret because this is what I'm going to work on this year. It's not a resolution, exactly, because I never keep those, it's an acknowledgment of bad behavior I'm going to try to halt. Because one of these days, somebody with super-hearing is going to HEAR me yelling at them and then they'll stop their car and beat the ever-lovin' crap out of me.
And I really don't want THAT to happen.
Happy New Year, everyone!
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5 comments:
Happy New Year!
This is my big issue as well. Sometimes the air in the car is Blue with nasty words. I really need to work on this because it is completely UN-Christian of me.
Throw a couple of kids in the back and you'll temper your words and actions. Worked in my case anyway.
I went from raging road lunatic to flipping off under the dash and saying, "Hope you enjoy being pulled from a twisted lump of steel when you crash your ass headlong into someone else."
Yeah. I need help.
Oh I know what you mean! I used to be pretty road ragey. I HATE to drive as it is. And then I decided to drive cross-country when I moved to the West Coast (and that was a trip full of road rage possibilities). Somehow I just let the rage go. Of course avoiding driving as much as possible for the following 3 years helped, including a period of over 18 months when I didn't drive at all. Now, as long as I have some good, upbeat music to listen to, I am completely fine.
Um, yeah. I was doing pretty well controlling myself until a similar situation happened to me. I believe I used the f-bomb as well as "dickhead". Then I remembered my child was in the car. I turned back and saw her just staring at me, wide-eyed and scared.
Whoops.
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