Road rage!

I almost posted this two weeks ago. I just never finished it. I was the victim of my first road rage incident!

The intersection leading to my house has turn lanes all around. I was first in line on the major highway in the east-facing turn lane. There was a grizzled old lady with a bad haircut in a silver car behind me. In the west-facing turn lane were two buses. If you promise not to laugh, I'll give you a helpful drawing I made on a sketchy MS Paint-like website I found.

Promise not to laugh.

PROMISE.

YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T LAUGH. Do you have any idea how hard it is to draw something with a trackpad? This was my face the whole time: 

ANYWAY.

I reached the front of the intersection as the yellow turn arrow turned to a green light for the lanes going straight, so I had a green light, but not a green arrow. All the traffic passed and there was a lull, but I couldn't see past the buses in the west-facing lane, so I wasn't going. Hell, if there's anything bigger than a Smart Car (lol) in the west-facing lane and you're in the front of the east-facing lane, you can't see any oncoming traffic.

Here's the thing though: if you're the second car in the east-facing turn lane, you can see oncoming traffic clear to Alabama. In the 10 years I've lived here, I've been in every possible position in that turn lane, so I know the deal. 

Unfortunately, the grizzly bitch behind me didn't, so she honked her horn and started waving her arms at me to go. I pointed at the buses, kinda gave her a Kanye shrug, and stayed right where I was. The first bus turned, the second bus was still there, I still couldn't see, so she honked again, two-three times. I pointed again at the bus and put my hand up, like "I CANNA SEE!!!" She LAID on her horn and wouldn't let up. The second bus went and I could finally see that there was no oncoming traffic, so I started to go, and she's still on her horn and RIGHT up my ass. So, like any polite suburban housewife with a limited edition sedan, I opened my sunroof and put my middle finger through it.

The street to get to my neighborhood is about 100 yards from that intersection, and we maintained our aggressive stances until I had to turn. I put both hands on the wheel, hit my turn signal, and turned. 

This bitch is still on her horn, following me.

That street is another good 100 yards and once we hit my neighborhood, she gets off the horn. I think, surely, she's not following me home. I turn onto my street and yuuup, she turns behind me. 

If you ever find yourself in this position, drive to the nearest police station. I'm not kidding. Do not do what I did next. Don't. My dad taught me better and he'd be PISSED if he read this. The only thing I was thinking about was getting home to pay my maid so she could leave. Anyway.

I stop mid-way down my street and put my car in park. She pulls up beside me, rolls her window down, and starts yelling. I can't hear her and I'm facing straight ahead, ignoring her, hoping she'll get over it and drive away. Nnnooooo, she went and laid on her horn. I figured at this point she's bothering the neighbors, so I roll the window down and say "Ma'am, you need to stop following me right now." "You stupid bitch, you should have gone! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE" "Ma'am, I couldn't see. You need to move on. I have a gun in my car and I know how to use it. Stop following me right now." "I'M CALLING THE COPS ON YOU, YOU CRAZY BITCH!"

Okay. So, I go to my house, which she can see, and pay my maid and tell her what happened. My maid is country as hell; "People ain't right these days, you can't go nowhere. Whatnahell's wrong with these crazy people." I tell her I'm going to walk her outside because she's probably 60 and 4'11 with boobs the size of beach balls and constant medical problems and she says "I ain't scared, I'll put a whoopin' on her she won't forget none." I love my maid. I walk her outside and she drives off just as a police car is pulling up, with another one right behind it. 

I stand and watch as the two officers listen to Grizzly. They're two houses down and I can hear her screaming and see her waving her bingo wings in the air and hitting her dashboard. The officers are moving their hands in that "calm down" motion to no avail. Eventually, they walk to me, and I tell them my side. When I said "I told her that I had a gun in my car and she needed to stop following me," they turned to each other and one said "Sounds like a reasonable request to me." "Yep." They walk back to her car.

She starts screaming and flailing again so I pull up Twitter while I wait. Eventually, I hear her engine rev and she speeds off and they start walking back to me shaking their heads so I put my phone away. As they get close to me, one says "Okay, ma'am, put your hands behind your back."

"Just kidding."

I collapsed a little bit with my hands on my knees and yelled "YOU'RE THE LEAST FUNNY PERSON EVER, SIR." They're both cracking up. Ha freakin' ha, guys. We all compose ourselves and they start apologizing, I start apologizing, and one says "You have every right to have a gun in your car. You didn't threaten to shoot her. You did the right thing. People need to realize that we're out here for criminal activity, not tantrums, and she's throwing a tantrum." "Yes sir." I thanked them for coming out, offered them drinks and food (yo, I'm Southern), we had another round of apologies, and I walked back in my clean house and folded my laundry.

24-year-old Stacey probably would have gone to jail, honestly. 34-year-old Stacey SHOULD have driven to the police station so they wouldn't have to come to me, but otherwise handled it remarkably well. I think the hours spent escorting at the abortion clinic with people being aggressive toward me for hours on end conditioned me for that very moment. 

I don't have road rage. I used to. I think people with road rage have a sense of self-aggrandizement, like, that driver doing that stupid thing is doing it to piss THEM off, specifically. I feel like, 99% of the time, if a driver does something I perceive as stupid, they're not doing it on purpose. We all make mistakes, man. I'm totally The Dude when I'm driving. I hope Grizzly Bitch gets over her rage. 

Or steps on Legos every day for the rest of her life.