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There are times when I actually love the human race, in a weird, Krelian-esque manner: that crazy, mixed-up mass of confused organisms doing what they can to get by in the world and still keep their sanity about them. There are also times when I think it would be no great tragedy if we were to put a world moratorium on reproduction for the next forty years. In particular, it would likely stop the following individual from breeding, something which I currently have a fairly vested interest in wanting to see. As those of you who are bored enough to read my updates page probably remember, I spent the last two weeks in Litchfield, Connecticut visiting relatives. During the length of the trip, my grandparents let me and my brother borrow their car so we could drive about and visit friends and so on. Anyhow, when I took it out one morning, the gas meter was close to empty. My car at home can actually run for quite a while with the gas light on. This one, as I found out, couldn't. While I was stopped at a red light in Torrington (closest semi-big city to Litchfield), a Fed Ex truck driven by a rather dirty-looking boy around my age stopped right behind me. The light changed, and I switched to the gas pedal and tried to turn. The car did not seem to want to agree with this change of events. In fact, it had stopped entirely. Naturally, this scared the hell out of me, especially when the car started to slide backwards (we were on a slight incline) and I slammed on the brakes to keep from hitting the truck behind me. The jowly Fed Ex guy began honking at me-- actually, it sounded like he had passed out with his forehead on the horn-- which should have been my first warning sign that I was dealing with somebody who had issues. I felt like something of an idiot by this point, not to mention that there was quite a lot of traffic in the intersection, so I switched to the gas pedal again in hopes that the car might work this time. This was not a good idea, as the car began to slide backwards again the second I did so. I braked in time to avoid hitting the Fed Ex guy, who by this time was yelling and sputtering, having come to the conclusion that I was in fact doing this on purpose just to piss him off. Discounting the fact that I can think of far more effective ways to annoy a driver, he could have just gone around me if he'd really wanted to, but apparently his sensibilities as King of the Road had been just too offended. Rather vainly hoping that he might understand, I rolled down the window and yelled that I was sorry and that my car had stopped. Actually, by this point, I was scared half to death because I didn't know what he was going to try to do and I hate people being angry at me. Instead he stuck his face out the window and yelled, probably spraying spittle all over his side mirrors in the process, "What the F**K are you trying to do?! You almost HIT me!" As if I had stopped my car on purpose just to get his hair up. Then he flipped me off, stuck his head back inside the window, and went back to honking and being surly. And that freaked me out. I half-expected him to jump out of the truck and come after me. Praying to any available deity, patron saint, or guardian spirit which might be available, I turned off the ignition, turned it on again, and thank whatever manner of fate or power which kicked in at that moment, the car actually started again. I wasn't sure if the Fed Ex guy considered himself above irking his employers by plowing his vehicle into mine just to get back at me, and I didn't want to stick around to find out; I just left. The Fed Ex guy tailgated me for the better part of a mile, then turned off onto a side street, business apparently interfering with his holy crusade of chasing me down. I think it says something terribly pathetic about us as a society when we jump to assume that someone else is deliberately trying to piss us off before even thinking of the far more logical explanations, most having little to nothing to do with us as individuals. If I'd been the one behind a car that suddenly stalled and began to slide backwards, I'd certainly be a bit scared, but my first assumption would be that something was wrong with the car, not with the driver. And I sure as hell wouldn't have began insulting and cursing the driver if they told me their car was stopped. More likely than not I'd have offered to help. I have never ceased to be amazed at the sheer number of drivers who refer to other motorists as idiots, and jump to assume personal offense, when a car inexplicably slows, stalls or stops, and yet somehow expect everyone else to magically understand and make way for them when THEY run into mechanical difficulties. It has to work both ways, people. You cannot treat other people like trash and then turn around and expect those same people to respect and understand YOU when you run into problems. I cannot for the life of me understand how that notion is difficult to grasp. And as for the guy in the Fed Ex truck, all I can say is that I hope YOUR precious truck breaks down in the middle of an intersection someday and you have to deal with an angry drunken trucker in an 18-wheeler directly behind you. Maybe I should put an NRA sticker on the back of my car (not that I even own a gun) on the off-chance that it might cause some of these egocentric road-rage imbeciles to restrain themselves from cussing me out. |