Cars, phones, and middle fingers
The other day, on the way to work, I was sitting at the stop light on Union Hill waiting to get on 520W. I noticed that the lady behind me was on the phone. No big deal to me, I don’t sport one of those “hang up and drive” bumper stickers on my truck. To pass the time, I started counting the number of people driving and phoning. Of the 19 cars that passed me while I was at the light, 9 of the drivers were chatting on their cells. And more than half of them had passengers in the car. It’s just kind of an odd sight to me, half of the people on the road are talking to someone, and that someone is NOT the person sitting right next to them. Anyway, I got a kick out of the lady behind me, who, while at the light, hung up the phone and immediately dialed another number. Once we got on 520 when followed closely behind me, from which distance I could see her make yet another call before I got off the 2nd exit. I wonder how many calls she made that morning.
After work I headed back down 520 to the light at Avondale and Union Hill. I’m in the right lane, as usual, to take a right at the light. There’s an onramp there for people coming from Target, Fred Meyer, Home Depot, etc. In front of me is a girl in a little silver Kia, who decided that nobody from that onramp was gonna get in front of her. She pulled out into the onramp lane and stopped, blocking all merging traffic.
Now, I kind of understand this activity when you get closer to the light, as you can usually skirt by the straight-goers and make your turn, albeit somewhat on the shoulder. This girl, however, was right at the start of the onramp, having another 250ft before the light. She was doing it just to be pissy. Sure enough, some dude in a 90-something Audi A4 blasted around her, really on the shoulder, spit rocks all over the place, and took his right turn at the light. This apparently either made Kia Girl really unhappy, or she simply realized that her play wasn’t working. She sped up to the light and took a sloppy right turn over the curb without stopping. After lazily catching up to them at the very next light, I noticed that both she and her passenger we on their phones.
I got home without further incident and started working on the kitchen sink, a project that’s been haunting me since we bought the house. After about an hour’s tinkering (ie cursing and grumbling), I finally succumbed to the fact that a trip to Home Depot was unavoidable. I hopped back in the truck with the list of needed parts, doohickeys, and the brand of vodka I wanted. I got my parts and doohickeys, but decided to not ask the staff if they had a secret booze locker. I hopped third in line behind a relatively normal looking guy who, surprisingly enough, was on the phone. Once the current customer was all checked out, the checker girl looked up at Mr. Yappy, who just stood there. Finally, the girl came around the counter and wheeled his cart up to the checkout for him. He followed the cart dutifully, then just stood there yakking. The girl again came around the counter, began taking Yappy’s items out of the cart, scanning them each in turn, and placing them back in the cart. While she was doing this, Yappy picked up a small item from the cart, started turning it over and over in his hand, and slowly turned his back on the scene, taking a few steps away from the counter. I guess the beeping of the laser scanner was disturbing his conversation. Soon, the item he held in his hand became the last item that she needed to scan. The short version is that he slowly sauntered back to the counter and lazily handed her the thing. She scanned it, he paid, signed his receipt, and headed out the door. He never hung up, never said ‘thank you’, never even nodded to her in appreciation of her work.
And I’m not done yet.
On my way out of the HD parking lot, I pulled up behind a pickup pulling a 5th-wheel trailer. The trailer had a garage-door-style locker in the back, and the door was open on little gas struts. Thinking that there’s no way that the struts were going to hold up under the stress of bouncing down the road, as well as the fact that the things in the locker were surely going to be bouncing their own way down the road, I flashed my lights. He sped up, probably assuming that I was just another jerk, such as those I’d been seeing all day. Ok, that didn’t work, I’ll see if I can get beside him and holler through the window. I took a left turn, the opposite of where I wanted to go, pulled along side his truck, and honked my horn. He looked at me and slammed on his brakes, and I ended up stopping a few feet in front of him. I guess he thought I was trying to get in front of him? No idea. Anyway, one more shot. Seeing nobody behind me, I popped into reverse and slid back toward the spot he’d just been a moment before. As I’d begun to back up, he revved his engine and flew past me. And flipped me off through the window. Ohhhh-kay, you’re on your own dude. Soon I came upon the steady peppering of various camping gear strewn along Avondale. As I caught up and finally passed him, I saw another car flashing their lights at the driver. Hope they had better luck.
I swear, this all happened in one day.
But wait, there’s one more.
A couple days prior, Kimberly and I were leaving my dentists office in downtown Redmond. We came to a light on Redmond Way, and Kimberly got stuck in the middle of the intersection. Yes, ultimately her fault, but we all do it from time to time. Not wanting to hold up cross traffic, she nudged her way to the right of the car in front of us. Her front tire was about even with his rear, which was just enough to let cross traffic do its thing. Shortly after, the next light which had us stopped in the intersection turned green. The guy in front of us, for reasons I still can’t grab a hold of, turned his tires way to the right and gunned it, whipping over in front of us. Where we were, there’s no way he could have hit her bumper, but what the hell was that? With a dirty look out the back window, he was off. Kimberly and I blinked at each other a couple times, then she pulled in behind him. After hitting about 10mph, he slammed on his brakes, coming to a complete stop in front of us. Kimberly, and who knows how many others, hit the brakes as well, and all movement stopped. Another dirty look and he was off again in a cloud of diesel smoke, sweeping across two lanes of traffic and cutting off two other cars, to make a left turn.
So what’s wrong with these people? Sure, we all make mistakes while driving. The ones we know about, we whimper “sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry” while frantically waving to the driver we have just wronged. The mistakes we don’t know about, well, we don’t do anything. I’m sure there are drivers out there who have told stories about some bald yahoo in a fruity yellow pickup. I hereby apologize to them all. I didn’t realize what I’d done.
These people, however, were very well aware of what they were doing. They were being malicious. They were being pissy. They were simply being assholes.
Except for the guy in line at Home Depot. I think he was just exceptionally stupid.