Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Night of the Living Idiots

I was on my way home last night and was waiting to make a left hand turn from a parking lot onto a street. There was one car coming down the road in the direction I wanted to go so I let him pass and pulled out behind him. There is a stop sign approximately 12 feet from where I pulled out from and this is where the guy in front of me stopped (actually just short of the stop sign.) I could see that he put the car into reverse so I honked my horn. This led to the man raising his arms up and I figured he wanted to park there. I started to back up and the car that pulled out right after me honked for coming into his lane. I pulled forward a little as close as I could to the guy who stopped in front of me. He got even more upset because I was too close to him and he couldn't maneuver to park his car straight on the street. I moved forward a little and being the hot-head that I am rolled my window down to discuss the issue. I was actually being polite and calm until the guy called me a "Pendejo" so I said that he was a fucking dumb ass for trying to park so close to a stop sign. The argument escalated into us questioning each others' manhood and mothers' honors. All this took place in less than a minute but it felt good being able to use all the bad words I know in Spanish.

Later, I came to a stop light controlling a busy intersection. On the street that I was on the left hand turn lane is actually a double left turn lane. I had my signal going and I was in the second turn lane (counting from the middle median) so I could take the turn wide and make a right on the next street. Can you picture that? The van to my left decided to take the turn wide and was about to hit me until I used my horn. He swerved out of the way and I could see the woman in the passenger seat was upset with the driver. After the last incident I decided to open all my windows because the evening was cooling off nicely. So when I pulled up even with the van the woman apologized to me and I said that it wasn't a problem. The driver took his hat off and was showing me the printing on it. It was the designation for a Naval warship. He kept saying it was Veteran's Day so please excuse him. I also told him it was alright and made my right turn. Then I got to thinking. Was the guy trying to tell me that he was toasted after a Veteran's Day party or that he wasn't in the wrong because he was a veteran?

2 comments:

Cindy said...

Don't even get me started on stupid drivers!!! I get road rage like you wouldn't believe (though I don't confront people).

I was also wondering what the heck the guy being a veteran had to do with anything.

Tom said...

I know I shouldn't confront anyone either but I really just wanted to know why he wanted to park by the stop sign. And I wasn't being rude or obnoxious either. And the other guy, I think he had a little too much to drink after the parade and festivities.