Yup, it's a hot date night for us before Matt goes out of town. Matt's playing his guitar at the moment, so I wanted to take a minute to write (see, it's gotta be like day 5 by now, right?) and recap a little story from this morning.
So I'm driving Levi to daycare and I come to a red light. There's 1 car in front of me that is just a bit too close for me to slide next to and take a right. Whatever, I'm not in a huge rush. Well, apparently the car that pulled up behind me was because the kid (eh, he was probably my age, but we'll call him a kid) driving starts honking and waving his arms. When I look in the mirror and try to use "international rear view mirror driver sign language" to tell him that the car in front of me is in the way... he flipped me off. Now listen, I know Levi is still to young to know what that means. And heck, he can't even see far enough over the back seat to even see the driver behind us. But that, that just made me mad. So, what did I do? I gave the man a hearty thumbs down. In cases like these I generally think it's better to just use shame.
Anyway, the car in front of me hears the honking and tries to move out of the way so I inch up a bit. Dude! The kid behind me gets right up on my bumper. Really? It's not going to help me take a right so please chill. He's still back there waving his arms and yelling and, at this point, I'm fairly certain he will probably have a heart attack from all the commotion.
Soon enough, the light changes and I took a right. He follow. Closely. We quickly come to another red light where he rests comfortably right up on my bum. Once the light changes, he slams on the gas and squeals around me, staring at me the whole way as if to prove some point about my inefficient driving.
As Karma would have it, the light about 50 yards up was red too. And if you think I didn't get a chuckle as I mumbled to myself, "race ya to the red light," well, then you'd be wrong. When that light turned green he squealed off again, presumably to terrorize some other car.
I couldn't help but wonder, what is so important? Maybe he had a partner in labor somewhere? Maybe he really had to go to the bathroom? My intuition says nah, he was just in a hurry. Why? Because I've been that guy. I don't flip people off or ride up on their bumper (because I'm scared of rear ending someone mostly) but I do often get all worked up and yell and flail like a fool over things of little importance- including someone not turning fast enough. You know, because the 45 seconds I have to wait really do make a difference.
The whole exchange, which may have lasted all of 2.5 minutes, made me think of a John Ortberg quote: "Be the kind of player people want to sit next to." (From, "When the game is over it all goes back in the box") Sometimes, though I'm not proud of it, I'm really not the kind of player I'd want to sit next to. I'm sure that boy behind me has good qualities- though flipping off a car, in the direction of a toddler, over a slow right turn probably isn't one of them.
Moral of the story? Still figuring it out. Slow down? Be nicer? Take the plank out of your own eye? You decide. Oh, and read some John Ortberg while your at it.
-ktw
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