Ah, here is they cynic you always hear about. But seriously. People can be assholes. This doesn’t mean that people can’t be
good people, or nice, or awesome.
It means that sometimes, people can be assholes.
This morning, we had a note on our car in a hotel parking
lot. We were parked within the
lines of the spot, but because of a car next to us the night before, we were
closer to one edge than the
other. “You park like an
idiot. I have you license plate.”
I know, why am I thinking about a note written by someone
who obviously has something else going on in his life that he’s upset about –
not just someone parking circumstantially poorly. But that raises the question: why is he taking someone
else’s parking job personally? We
didn’t park like that just to piss him off, nor did we park that way with
specific ire toward this one person – who, mind you, we don’t even know. Further, why did he feel it was
necessary to write us a note to relay his anger?
One thing that I’ve noticed since getting my license is that
normally calm people (and normally high strung people) take a lot of their
anger out on the road. “What is
that idiot doing?” I’m sure
everyone has thought that once while driving (and some of us while not
driving). Often, “idiot” is the
nicest word used. So why is it
normal to take anger out while driving – whether by driving aggressively or by
getting angry at aggressive drivers.
I’m guilty of it. While
waiting for someone to make a particularly hair pin turn going up hill, I
honked once – I was running late.
As a car sped up (around a blind turn) behind me, I honked again, more
for the benefit of him than the man ahead of me so that I wouldn’t get hit. I honked a third time after the man
behind me honked – almost five minutes after we both were stopped. Why didn’t I go around? Same safety reason why I honked the
second time. Why did I honk a
third time? It was directed toward
the guy behind me – we were both stuck.
No one could do anything about it.
It turns out that the car ahead of me was going to the same
place I was – or at least the same parking lot. We pulled in after each other and as I got out of my car and
walked toward the class I was late for, I heard someone shouting. “Hey. Hey,” the third time, I turned around. “Yeah, you.” An old man was walking toward me, a cane punctuating every
other step. A middle aged woman
was behind him, either pretending to be trying to catch up, or acting as a back
up.
“Your horn sure works well.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your horn.
Sure works well. You’re a
rude child.”
Oh yeah, I still look 16 – he probably thought I was a newly
licensed driver.
“You have no right to honk at me. That corner’s hard to get up.”
Yeah, if you’re driving 15 miles an hour uphill.
“Sir, I meant nothing personal by honking – I was in a very
unsafe position behind you, and I was alerting the cars behind me that we were
stopped.”
“Stop making excuses.
Children these days are disrespectful. Down right obnoxious.
Should all be put down, if you ask me.” As if we were dogs.
I started to turn to walk away. The woman behind him, who I assume was his daughter,
shouted, “Don’t you walk away. He’s
talking to you.”
Why does driving rile people up so much? Even the most even tempered person gets
angry at the littlest thing on the road – albeit many are severe safety issues. And apparently, some get so upset as to
write notes and confront someone who honked at them.
We all need to chill out on the road. No one needs to freak out as we do, but
it seems easier to drive angry, or be angry on the road instead of confront our
problems head on. So next time you
snap at someone on the road and shout in your car (they usually can’t hear you)
think about what else is going on.
And work through the problem without leaving a passive aggressive note
on a strangers car. Or without
writing a passive aggressive post on your blog. No one is an asshole without a reason.
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