I got flicked off this morning.
Happy Tuesday to me, huh?
In the shadow of the football stadium, there’s a little side road that I sometimes use to do an end-run around Russell street on those days that Russell is looking particularly cloggity. There’s a stadium parking lot to one side and so, half way down the street, there’s a cross walk for fans to use while walking to or from the game.
On game day, I’d imagine there’s constant pedestrian traffic and a driver would have to stop to let the people pass.
However. There is no stop sign. There are also, at 8:20 in the morning, no pedestrians present. Anywhere in view. At all. In the absence of a stop sign and pedestrians the crosswalk goes from being a crosswalk to just lines on the pavement.
The road has two lanes, both going south. This morning, I was following a very slow truck down the little side street. We were in the left lane. I decided 10 just wasn’t my speed, so I got in to the right lane to pass the truck. I slid over and found myself behind a maroon sedan. As we approached the cross walk, the truck slowed down to stop. Why, I don’t know. Maybe he thought he had to. Maybe he was lost and was pulling over to look at a map. The maroon sedan in front of me must have figured there was a stop sign and slammed on its brakes. I had to stop too, coming a little closer to the sedan’s bumper than I would have liked.
And we sat there. I checked (I had time); there were indeed no stop signs. There were no pedestrians. We were just sitting there at a non-stop sign waiting for the imaginary football fans to pass I guess.
So I honked.
And her middle finger shot in the air.
We pulled up next to eachother at the end of the street. Me turning left, she turning right. I looked at her. “Fuck you asshole,” she said. “Not a stop sign,” I mouthed.
And then we both smiled and laughed. Got out of our cars and hugged and had a good chuckle over the whole thing.
No, not really.
She yelled “motherfucker”, flicked me off again and peeled wheels.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate getting honked at. But my brain is wired in such a way that if I get honked at, my first thoughts involve figuring out what I’m doing wrong and not finding the honker and overwhelming them with my middle finger of hate.
It wasn’t a long beep and the Civic’s horn is not what I’d call intimidating. It was, I thought, a “hey, let’s get moving again” beep.
To which, I suppose, the only rationall response is the bird. Motherfucker.
