Beep Beep! Screw You.

I hate bad drivers. They are everywhere here. EVERYWHERE. And – I don’t work well with bad drivers. I never have really. They make me want to fight.

9 or so years ago I got into one of these bad-driver-related fights. And it went a little like this:
I am driving down Ward Parkway in Kansas City – a very nice, older neighborhood that connects downtown-ish areas to the suburbs. I am in the middle lane. There is a sign stating that the left lane is ending. The left lane ends. A block later a mean man in a big old truck zooms up on my left side, squeezing me over, so he can have my spot.

I assume he did this so he wouldn’t have to merge when he was supposed to.

I stop. He gets in front of me. I do the shrug – holding my arms in the air – giving him the “what are you doing, you dumbass?” look. He makes a few odd gestures which would normally signal “help me, I am on fire, call the medic”. I yell. He yells. He flips me off. I flip him off. He pulls over. I pull over. He gets out of his car. I get out of my car. He yells more. I yell more.

This guy – about 40, six foot, very fat…old country boy and quite mad – is not happy that I called him on his shitty driving. I, a 26 year old, 5’5” 115 pound girl – am not happy and willing to do everything in my power to take him out.

A police man pulls up. Takes one look at the situation, and tells me to get back in my car. Now. And – he is NOT kidding.

I get back in my car and wait. The big idiot gets a ticket – for what I don’t know. And, I get a lecture for starting a fight with a grown man. The police man was quite upset at my inability to just let the situation go and behave. I heard the whole “you could get yourself killed trying to fight with grown men” speech for a very long time.

I finally arrived at home expecting a sympathetic ear, and found none. Yet another lecture from my husband and his parents. Nice. Years later when I recounted the story I got the same darn lecture… And yet – I learned NOTHING.

Once again – today – I ran into another bad driver. This woman…the idiot that she was… was turning left from a small neighborhood onto a MAJOR road. I was turning left from this MAJOR road into the small neighborhood. She pulled out in front of me waiting for a break in traffic. I drove right in front of her and turned left. She honked. I honked. She flipped me off. I flipped her off. She yelled at me. I yelled at her. Luckily she saw a break in traffic and left. Saved me from pummeling her. Or another lecture.