Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Dude...switch to decaf.

Just experienced the most vile, hot-headed bit of road rage I've ever seen. Aimed directly in my passenger window by a ~60 year old white guy. Epithets below are verbatim. I don't mean to offend anyone.

I pulled up to a 4-way stop on my commute to work a bit ago. I stopped. The guy in the huge, tricked-out 4x4 opposite me was still rolling up to his stop sign (easily seen by the enormous tread on his off-road tires still moving). So I turned left. He didn't stop, at all, and proceeded to drive towards me getting about 3" away from hitting my car (at about 2mph). I kept on my way, he made some crazy-ass traffic-stopping U turn in the middle of the intersection and followed me. I took off my seat-belt.

At the next stop light 20 seconds later, he pulls up along my passenger side and stops; hanging halfway out of his driver's window, obviously having something terribly important to say. I roll down my passenger's side window eagerly anticipating whatever bits of driving wisdom he can bestow upon me. What follows is a tirade unlike anything I've ever heard. He starts out by telling me that the (public) road on which I was just driving was an "industrial road" (all the commercial shops not withstanding) and that I should "stay the fuck off it". To which I reply "Um, no". Then his head explodes. He proceeds to get out of his truck, stick his face in my passenger's side window and (screaming, at this point) call me a "nigger" (I'm white), a "faggot" (I'm straight), a "pussy" (I'm a guy), "Obama" (I'm not), "earring" (guilty on that one. I have an earring in each ear), and "democrat" (you got me again. Two outta six ain't bad, I guess). He then tells me "If you ain't a cop or ain't got a cop friend or ain't gonna call the cops, I'd beat your ass right here". At this point, I swear to god, my left eye is twitching like Clint Eastwood in some old western movie. It's taking every bit of my restraint to not reach into the glove box and pull out my 3 D-cell Mag light and brain this fucker. I'm thinking "No matter how much this asshat deserves it, if I cave his skull in, there are a lot of witnesses. I've got a wife, a teenager, and a new baby. Jail time would suck." So I just sit there soaking in his rage (maybe passive-aggressively goading him on...just a little, hoping he'll put forth that last little bit of effort necessary to give himself a coronary right there in my window; Sadly, he does not.) The light ahead of me turns green, and I start to drive off, his face still in my window. He ends his tirade with...and I swear this is true and a direct quote..."Be a Republican! Pay your bills!!!!"

I'm really pissed that I'm not faster on my feet (so to speak). I had my camera in the bag next to me. I *really* need to learn to pull it out and start shooting when jerkoffs like this are melting down in front of me. In addition to having some nice images for this blog post (which I started composing in my mind about halfway through his meltdown), I'm quite sure it would have been the final straw and driven him directly into that coronary I was so hoping to see. Which would have been beautiful poetic justice.

The up side to this is that he drives a *very* distinctive, *very* customized truck. And he mentioned (when talking about the "industrial" road) "We've been on this street for 45 years". Sure would be a shame if something happened to that truck. A damn shame. It sure is a pretty truck. Just sayin'