I was heading down Main Street, USA today.
Ahead of me a light was red, but turned green as I approached. On the other side of the red light, facing me, was traffic already stopped. One green truck in the front of the line. With driver side door open. Man walking to the back of the truck. I thought something was wrong.
There was.
He approached a white car behind him. I thought maybe there had been a fender bender.
There had not.
I don’t know what happened.
What I saw was two people in the white car with their windows rolled up. They looked to be in their fifties. They did not roll down the window as the man approached. There was a line of traffic next to them who could not make a left hand turn until I went through. Many eyes were watching.
I wasn’t going very fast due to the speed limit and the recently turned light. As I approached the man, probably in his fifties or sixties, he was pointing at the driver’s side door window. He might have actually been hitting it with his jabbing finger. By appearances, he was acting quite aggressive. He turned back to face my direction to get in his truck because the light had changed.
He glanced at me. Spit on the ground and kept moving to his truck.
I’m not a mind reader but I know a look of disgust or hate when I see one. And he had both.
As many a passenger of mine could tell you, I am not an angel when it comes to being aggravated by other drivers. I’ve cussed under my breath. I’ve cussed out loud. I’ve rolled my eyes. But I generally try to keep my appearances to other drivers neutral. Because you do not know when the other driver who has aggravated you, has a gun, or a license to be an idiot. Those folks will ram you with their cars or follow you to where ever you park to take out their rage on you. And on the occasion that I have been the idiot driver (purely by accident never on purpose) I don’t want someone obviously cussing me out. What if I’m the crazy person?
My questions are….
When, as a society, did we allow it to be acceptable behavior to take out our anger and aggressions on others? I accept and agree that we have a right to our feelings, attitudes and behaviors. But we do not have a right to inflict them on others. Your anger is not an excuse to scare, belittle or terrorize others. Control yourself buddy, sit in the truck and just simmer. Count to ten. Roll your eyes. Cuss out loud…in your truck.
And when did life get so insanely out of control that we don’t have the patience to get to where we are going without thinking everyone else had damn well better honor our royal butts as we travel to where we are going?
For all I know the people in the white car were idiot driver’s themselves. I have no idea. Every car that was facing me as I approached was at a stand still due to the light. No one could have been moving for a manner of many seconds. How long is a light red? What did they do that he didn’t even get out of the truck until it almost turned green again?
As I passed the man and turned off of Main Street USA I just wanted to roll my own window down and yell “GET YOUR ASS BACK IN THE TRUCK BUDDY!”
But I thought he might be one of those crazy drivers.
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