Thursday, June 2, 2011

Road Rages

I can say for certain that my mouth is never filthier than when driving. I scream and curse and insult like no one's business. And while I readily admit I am far (very, very, very far) from a perfect driver myself, something happens to me when I get behind the wheel wherein I lose all my compassion, empathy and understanding. Unless of course you are roadkill. Then I grab my heart and say "I am so, so sorry little animal." Yes. I actually do that.

Here is a brief and, most likely, incomplete list of things that make me wish other drivers had to wear zap collars and I got to control the remote:

People who brake before turning on their directional.

People who don't use their directional at all.

People who, while speeding right along, change lanes suddenly because they're too awesome to brake, leaving you, the person behind them, barely any time to brake yourself because YOU HAD NO WARNING and the cars in front of you are at a complete stop. Win. (not.)

People that don't have their lights on when it is dawn, dusk, or dark out, or when there is inclement weather. Dude, I know you think you're the center of the world and everyone is looking at you in your fancy blends-with-everything beamer, but actually, we're not. And we can't freaking see you!

People who Jersey Merge (a.k.a. cross all three lanes of busy highway traffic in one fell swoop).

Especially people who Jersey Merge from an on-ramp to the fast lane, trying to beat an 18-wheeler but not thinking that perhaps there is a person in the fast lane on the other side of the 18-wheeler, who is, as the lane suggests, going fast and you may collide with due to your asininity.

People who go slow in the fast lane.

Tailgaters. (this one might annoy me the most, actually.)

People who don't speed up on the on-ramp to merge with highway traffic.

People who brake for absolutely no apparent reason.

People who fail to understand that merging is like a zipper. A zipper, people!


See how well that works?!

So, there you have it. Often, after cussing out everyone in the cars around me with unnecessary vitriol, I arrive at my destination, get out of the car and think, "That may have actually been a little excessive." It's likely that if I ever see you on the road I will lose my ish at you too (though you'd never know - I'm not a fan of certain hand gestures, or yelling with the windows down), but take heart! It really isn't personal. And I'll like pull a foll-ass move myself, which you can lord over me later. Though, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't. I have an ego to feed, after all.

4 comments:

  1. I had an epiphany as I was driving Allie back to NY last Sunday. I am such a (fairly) mild-mannered individual in the non-driving world and have few outlets to relieve my stress, therefore I lose my shit while driving and develop a potty mouth to rival even the most filthy of sailors.

    That being said, I fully concur with your litany of asinine drivers, with the possible exception of the Jersey merge (how the hell did it get that name anyway?) because sometimes it's the fault of the highway. For example, in order to get to Memere's, I have to cross over 195. 24 spits me out into the fast lane of 195 and I have a mere 1/2 mile to zip across 3 (or 4) lanes of traffic to get to Memere's exit. It really makes you appreciate life.


    (Also, I believe I commented on your most recent post, but then forgot to do the "proof-of-existence" thing & exited out of the window. Fortunately it wasn't as involved a post as this one is...)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Raaah. For some reason, every once in a while Blogger decides to not let me log in and leave comments...even if I AM logged in. It's weird, and annoying, and the response I HAD typed up is LOST FOREVER.

    Also, the verification word it gave me?? "Racist." WHISKY TANGO FOXTROT. Epic fail, Blogger. EPIC.

    Also, uhm, the synopsis of my last lost comment:
    haha yeah, outlet! though I always curse like a sailor, but I don't yell so, still applies!

    Jersey Merging kind of makes sense in that situation, but I have seen PLENTY of situations where it was completely unneccessary and the person could've changed lanes like a normal human being WITHOUT endangering everyone else around them.

    Sadface: your lost comment
    Happyface: this comment!

    Yaaay! Done! Let's see if this works...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I liked to picture playing Mario Cart and being able to send different things off to the driver who is bothering me, like banana peels (magical ones of course) or something like a stun gun that then moves them off the road. I recently was behind someone, going lower than the speed limit, who would break, randomly, so then of course, I'd have to break because I'd be hoping they'd see the light and go, oh yeah, we should be driving 10 miles per hour faster!! They breaked around slight curves, sllliiighhtt curves, where there was really no need to freak out and AHHH BREAK... BREAK.... BREAKK. Then they'd break on straight ways... with no on in front of them and no one driving by, no critters running around.... I was like seriously? Seriously??? Oo OOO and I also love the people who can't commit to making a turn. Miss WQ knows what I mean. They start to turn, but then "oh, maybe, maybe not, but oh yeah right this IS the turn I want ok, there's the gas pedal again, maybe I'll just press it slightly." JUST MAKE THE FRIGGING TURN ALREADY. There's this one stop my mom's afraid of, because for some reason, people have this inability to commit to making the turn, as someone else is waiting to turn out of that road. We're usually behind the non-commiter, who confuses us, the person waiting to turn and anyone else so unfortunate to behind us or driving towards us. I don't know what it is about this spot, but seriously, I've seen people do incredibly dumb, life-threatening things there. Sigh. Ok, I think my rant is done haha.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Seriously. It makes me wish I lived in a city where I could walk pretty much everywhere and be DONE with people's driving lunacy!!!

    ReplyDelete

 
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You Sass Like You Breathe by Sarah Linnell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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