So it's a cold Thursday evening and it's rush hour. You have clearly stopped somewhere for a beer or twelve before getting back on the road to head to your trailer park. It's 28 degrees Fahrenheit, but you're crawling along blocking the passing lane with your window rolled all the way down so you can hang your arm out and signal to other drivers what you think of them. You've got your baseball hat on backwards as a marker of your status in life. The hat, coupled with the hunter green Camaro, your excessively slow passing-lane driving, and the inappropriateness of your window being down in this weather is all one giant waving red flag to the world that you are a rolling arrest record for various misdemeanors all involving alcohol and public nudity.
I'm not sure what your problem with me was, or if it was even specifically with me seeing as you were blocking the entire highway all at once with your intentional slowness, but when I passed you on the right and you sped up to block me out, then you had a problem with me, because I wasn't going to be blocked by a shithead loser like you. I passed you and suddenly you felt motivated to get up off your ass and accelerate. You also felt motivated to turn on your high beams, which had the effect of lighting up my rear bumper and reflecting off the chrome back into your own white trash face, genius. You tried tailgating me, but with my big-assed rear bumper and your plastic and not-so-fantastic Camaro it was a pretty empty threat. It was the sort of stupidity I'd expect from a Hee Haw winner like you, though.
I did enjoy it when we sat side-by-side at the red light. I liked looking down into your rolling trashcan of a car, all filled with every bag and can you'd eaten and drank from for the past 10 years, while you sat there trying to act badass with your backwards baseball hat and rolled down window. Is your window broken? Is that why you kept it down? I ask because I've noticed that all the rednecks around here always have their driver's door window rolled down and they always rest their arm on the door even when it's 28 degrees out. It's like saying "I'm too stupid to roll my window up, rain or shine or sleet or snow." And it did begin to sleet on your stupid ass, too. That made me laugh.
When I turned off the highway and you suddenly found your manhood long enough to show the world how high class you are with your extended middle finger, it was no surprise to anyone. Your Camaro labeled you a moonshine moron long before you held your hand up one finger at a time to show us. I'm sure when you got home to your trailer, which is no doubt in the trailer park located right next to the most infamous strip club in this city, Visionz, where your sister/girlfriend works, I'll bet you slammed your door good and hard to tell the world how angry you are, rattling the window that won't roll up because you broke it by slamming the door like that. And then you stomped into your single-wide trailer and slammed that door, too. I'll bet the instant you got inside you got another beer from the fridge before turning on your big-screen TV and flipping straight over to 'wrassling' didn't you? And then you plopped your useless ass down on your torn and duct-taped vinyl couch that you took from a dumpster and totally forgot about the sleet falling outside, filling up your driver's seat with ice because you were too stupid to cover it and too lazy to take your car to have the damn window fixed. 'Cause you're a winner, Bubba. Your life is awesome.
I am a totally self-focused, strong, independent woman in my silver Lexus. I don't use blinkers because I know where I am going and I don't care if no one else knows. I drive slowly when you are behind me because I am a bitter, selfish person who gets pleasure out of aggravating other drivers. I see that you have a large truck with heavy grill guard which will crush my Lexus if you actually hit me, but I trust your self-restraint enough that I am going to fuck with you and dare you to hit me even though I know it could kill me. I'm an American woman, rich and powerful. You won't hit me. You wouldn't dare.
I chose a Lexus because that's what all the other managers drive and also because its just as uppity as a Jaguar, but without the stigma of being openly pretentious that Jag has. I chose silver because I feel that silver effectively communicates to the world that I am above you all, especially the ordinary workers. I am in management. I am important. I am more important than you.
I work at BAE Systems, a woman-owned company in massive decline with broad management problems related to the extreme micromanaging we do here. The intense bitchiness doesn't help any, either. We promote based on sex, and female is the only sex that counts in America, so we only promote females. They know they were promoted based on their vaginas and so they are anxious to prove that they deserve to be in charge regardless. This is why they micromanage their subordinates so badly. I am one of them, a micromanaging vagina promoted beyond my level of competence. Hence the pretentious silver Lexus that I drive, my bitterness, and my habit of fucking with men in traffic while on my way to work.
I hate my job. I hate BAE Systems. I hate the stress of knowing that I don't really know what I'm doing and the constant fear that everyone else knows, too. As much as I micromanage the employees under me, my bitch of a boss micromanages me. It's hell. There's so much estrogen in this place we could almost bottle it and sell it to post-menopausal women for supplements. Sure, we're connected to the defense industry, but the only thing manly about what we do here is the phallic shape of the weapons we work on. The stress levels in this place are high enough to cause miscarriages and mental breakdowns. Some think there already have been mental breakdowns, but the level of crazy is just so high that you can't tell the difference.
I guess the real reason that I drive to work slowly in the passing lane, spending so much time and effort blocking other drivers who are trying to get to work is the fact that I hate my job and don't want to be here. I'd rather fuck around in traffic for an extra 30 minutes than be at my desk feeling my blood pressure rising while dodging my boss or the latest fucking stupid, useless meeting where we are all demeaned and humiliated by some twat on speakerphone whose ass we have to kiss day in and day out even though we've never actually met her face-to-face. They constantly hint about layoffs while shifting more and more of our work to Connecticut, which raises our stress levels ever higher. My God, Connecticut, the virtual capital of cuntliness! The only people here who are willing to transfer up there are lesbians, because that's all there is in Connecticut - lots and lots of angry lesbians.
So I guess the reason that I fuck with all of you in traffic is that I am miserable. And I want you to be miserable too. I'm a cunt.
It's Christmastime again, this time for the year 2010. We're expecting snow on Christmas Day, which would be cool, in more ways than one. I'm going to take some time off from work and try to rest, although God only knows what I'm actually going to end up doing. There's always a list of things to be done, whether at home or at work. I suspect when we all get up to Heaven someday, God will greet us with a list of things to do along with a requirement that we fill in estimates of when we think we'll have them done. The list will continually grow and we will spend our eternity doing this damn list. Yeah, and that's Heaven. Hell is no doubt even worse and probably involves project managers and perpetual 'scope creep', where your original task keeps growing with more and more requirements. Meanwhile, other things are added to the list and you're expected to somehow get them all done at the same time. Demons nag the shit out of you for being behind. And there's no internet in hell so you can't blog about it. And no days off. And no toilet paper in the bathrooms. And no coffee, except decaff, which you finally learn is just demons pissing in a dirty coffee pot, as you had always suspected.
I wish I was a real boy
Anyway, enough about that. What else is going on for Christmas this year? Oh yeah, President Obama is trying to push through a bunch of new appointees to our Justice Department and other top posts with great power. It's not being widely publicized (Wall Street Journal page A2, Dec 22), but I couldn't help noticing that every single one of them are Jewish women with heavy feminazi ties, and by feminazi I mean Ashkenazi, which is German for 'face like a rat.' And then I started researching a little (got lost in Googleland) and I discovered that the vast majority of Obama appointees are feminazi Jewish women. And living in Memphis as I do, I had to ask, where are all the high-ranking jobs for black men and women that he promised? Why are only a handful of his closest and highest-ranking appointees black men and black women? Why does he so often appear to be totally beholden to (owned and operated by) Jewish misandric feminist women specifically? These women didn't vote for him, not a single one. They voted for Hillary. And Hillary isn't dead (where's Dorothy with that bucket of water?) or even out of the running for the next presidential race. Yes, yes, I know that Obama is George Soros' houseboy and George Soros is a huge Ashkenazi feminazi communist momma's boy who gives millions to female supremacist hate groups around the world in the mistaken belief that one day, if he gives enough money, these man-hating Marxist mostly-lesbian womyn will magically love him and only him the way his momma never did. But even so, you would think, what with all the rap songs about "bros before hos" and shit, that Obama would take care of the brothas first, and pay back his master, Voldemort, second. But if you thought this, you would be wrong. Never underestimate the power of the Dark Side, and by 'Dark Side' I don't mean black people, because as I just said, he's not really paying back the black people very well, which was the whole point of that entire gigantic paragraph.
Barney Claus
Also happening just in time for Christmas, our Democrat-controlled Congress, with their dying breath, set free all the gay soldiers in the military (Democrats created Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell under Clinton and The very gay Press celebrated it), took over the internet so they could censor blogs like mine, sold our national security to the Russians with a Jimmy-Carter-like treaty straight out of the drug-fueled, disco 1970s, and swore to their goddess, Lilith, that they didn't mean to lie about Global Warming. And then those Death Eaters disapparated and returned to Voldemort's lair to plot their eventual return and revenge.
Pump till you puke
What else is going on? Oh yes, I have joined a new gym, where women in workout tights stand in front of a room wearing a Britney Spears-like headset and force entire groups of people to do torturous and agonizing things involving stretchy cables, dumbbells, plastic step-ups and foam mats. Meanwhile, just outside the torture room, visible through the glass windows, college girls in tiny tank-tops and shorts are sweating and exercising with weights for upcoming volleyball/basketball/softball/soccer matches against other colleges with teams of similarly sweaty girls. Alongside the sweaty college girls, old fat men are attempting to powerlift the same weight they did while they were younger while struggling not to stare too hard at the college girls. Elsewhere in the new gym, there is a tiny dark room filled with sweaty, panting people on bicycles that go nowhere. Another Britney-Spears-like person, this one a man, forces them to ride their bicycles to nowhere as fast as possible while he shouts at them and blares technopop music through giant speakers. Upstairs, people ride similar bicycles to nowhere, run treadmills to nowhere, and ellipticize on ellipticals to nowhere, all while watching big-screen TVs (checking each other out) and listening to iPods. Down below, a group of white men play basketball against one another (badly) and silently pray to God for the ability to slam dunk like Michael Jordan (never gonna happen.) And because I have joined in on all of this, I am now paying less money (I'm broke) while working out harder (vomiting) than I was before (no interruptions to listen to monologues about conspiracy theories), and as a result, I am today in severe pain unlike anything I ever experienced with the conspiracy master, LaRaza, who was my previous trainer.
Drugs? I ain't on no drugs. Whatchew tawkin' 'bout, boy?
Yesterday, as I was driving home from work, I got behind a white Toyota Celica going 40 in the passing lane on the highway. Traffic was just blowing past this turd until we came to a red light. When the light turned green, he just sat there for a minute until I had to tap my horn. Then he slooooowly accelerated up to a crawl. With all the traffic blowing past us, there was no way to get around him. When I flashed my brights, indicating to all who passed their driver's test that you are in the passing lane and clearly not passing anyone so move it or get over, he began tapping his brakes. Yeah, in a Celica. And I'm in a giant 4x4 with a steel grill-guard just right for pushing Japanese shit-piles into a ditch. He tapped his brakes and I didn't tap mine. My grill-guard went up over his rear bumper and hatch and was nearly tapping his rear window when it suddenly occurred to him that he'd better speed the fuck up or he might be visiting a bodyshop and/or hospital for Christmas. At this point, Bo Duke there stuck his fist out the window and began shaking it. Yes, seriously. And then, not satisfied with shaking his fist, he himself began to climb out of his window, turn around backwards, and scream at me. I have no idea who was steering his car at this point, but he was going so slowly anyway that it is entirely possible that no one was. The fist-shaking gentlemen had a long white beard and scraggly long hair, well matched to his sunken pale eyes, pale wrinkly skin, and bad teeth. He looked like someone who might have been kicked out of ZZ Top at some point. I had to laugh at this comical cunt going totally apeshit in front of me as a consequence of his own bad, and likely drunken, driving. But I did go ahead and sit on my horn while turning on my high beams to make absolutely certain he understood that I was not his sister and thus he should stop trying to fuck with me. I suppose he got the point. He slipped back into his seat and continued his agonizing crawl down the highway. I had reached my destination at this point and turned left to go home. At the rate he was traveling, I'll bet he's still driving right now, trying to get to wherever he was going. That is, unless someone has shot him by now.
Male Bashing Packaged and Marketed as a Video Game
There's a new female-only video game out. It's called "Hey Baby" and it's a first person shoot'em up game in which a woman walks down the street shooting and killing various random men for the 'crime' of speaking to her. The ever-female supremacist media is thrilled about it, celebrating the blatantly sexist nature of the game. The game is currently sold out, indicating that not only do a substantial number of women consider misandric sexism to be acceptable, but highly desirable and thus profitable as well. Expect a flood of misandric video games following the success of this one. Male bashing is easy money.
Pedro and Jose Live Longer Than You
A new study has found that in the United States, Hispanics outlive whites and blacks both, by several years. The US Congress, the single largest exploiter of illegal alien labor, has indicated that this is a non-issue and nothing to be concerned about. "As long as it isn't white males outliving anybody there is no problem here", a US Government official representing the White House said.
Obama Objects to Americans Fear of his Marxism
US President Barack "Daddy Warbucks" Obama is accusing Republicans of "fear mongering" and cites the American voters' overwhelming fear of President Obama's destructive Marxist policies as proof. "The American People are utterly terrified of what I'm doing to the economy, not only of America, but the entire world, with my progressive redistribution of wealth policies. I am the first black Robin Hood and I should be celebrated, worshipped even, for my great achievements and social justice policies. There is simply no excuse for Americans to be afraid just because I might be damaging the future of America a little bit."
Gay Old Republicans
Almost as if in response to the criticisms the Tea Party has leveled against the Republican Party leadership and its stubbornly out-of-touch policies, a tiny, but powerful homosexual wing of the Republican Party, the Log Cabin Republican, have successfully sued the United States military to end its "Don't ask, don't tell" policy for homosexuals serving in the armed forces. The lawsuit could not possibly be further out of sync with the views and values of conservative Republican voters. The lawsuit illustrates clearly the chasm of disconnect that exists between the voters and the Republican Party leaders, who have recently allied with Democratic Party leaders in a join effort to crush the Tea Party uprising in what can only be described as the most self-serving and short-sighted effort ever by Republican Party leaders. Tea Party supporters, should they ultimately abandon the Republican Party, would leave the Republican Party a tiny shadow of its former self, irrelevant and unwinnable in any future elections.
Peking Penis Pianist
An armless pianist has won the first ever season of "China's Got Talent" by playing the piano with his genitalia. "It's truly amazing to see," one noticably excited Chinese woman said. "I have never seen any man do what this man can do with his dingaling and dangleberries. I think I love him!"
New Zealand Not Laughing At Dikshit
A New Zealand television host has quit his job over a dispute relating to his mispronunciation of Sheila Dikshit's fairly awkward and obviously humorous name. "You can't tell me that her name isn't hilarious," the disgruntled host allegedly or possibly never said. "Any New Zealander who can't see the humor in this is a disgrace to our great nation and should pack up and move to America, with all of their ridiculous political correctness and pink fucking everything all over the place."
Flooding in Rio
Massive flooding in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has prompted thousands of sleek, sexy Brazilian women to throw off their clothing and swim to work in the nude. "We are Brazilian," one anonymous nude woman said. "We won't let a little thing like water stop us from living our lives. We can swim like fish." The American Embassy in Brazil has reported a different type of flood, one consisting of American photographers flying into Rio to photograph the amazing spectacle. "I can't really blame them," Ambassador Keanue Reeves was reported to have said. "These Brazilian women are super hot."
Aliens Signaling Earth with a Special Offer
Australian astronomer Ragbir Bhathal claims to have detected a signal from the vicinity of Gliese 581g, the planet in the zone of habitability for life. He explained, "I have deciphered the signal and determined that it is an advertisement for "Girls Gone Wild" DVDs. I have ordered 10 of them so that I can study this new alien life form at play. It is all for the efforts of science."
Loonies On The Path
Yesterday in traffic I noticed a high level of lunacy and rage on the part of drivers. All I knew was that a cold front had been replaced with a warm front, my knee was hurting and rain was expected. I had assumed the hot weather following the cold was to blame. But then I read about the earthquake in Oklahoma and it made more sense to me. The worst traffic I have ever seen, with the most insanely aggressive and lunatic behavior, was the day before a major earthquake in Illinois. I was going to write another Loonies on the Path post about it, but I just never got around to it. So this is it.
Dear black man in the black BMW 7-series with the black tinted windows,
I enjoyed having you ride my ass all the way up the on-ramp during the 15 seconds or so that it took for all of us to make the big, arcing loop up onto the interstate. I know this sounds odd, but just the way you were trying to threaten me, as if you were going to actually ram my back bumper with your $80,000 leased German status symbol, made me laugh. I couldn't help it. It was such a ridiculous threat that I couldn't stop myself from busting out laughing right in front of you.
Apparently this wasn't the reaction that you were hoping for. It seemed to make you mad. And so, then, you funny man, you actually tried to pass all of us on the right at the first opportunity, which was a temporary lane that ends at a concrete barrier not 50 yards further down. You were so mad that you refused to take your foot off the gas even for a second. I watched as you flew past me, then the old man in the pickup ahead of me, then the girl on the motorcycle ahead of him, and finally past whomever was in front of the girl. You almost took your whole front end off as you swerved at the last possible second to avoid death by concrete, cutting off some poor soul as you forced your way in front of them and skidded over 2 lanes, all without signaling of course, and took off in a rage down the interstate.
What were you so mad about? And what the hell did you expect me to do for you? Did you think I was going to ram the old man in the pickup just because some fool in an $80,000 car was pretending he might hit me from behind if I didn't? I didn't care. If you had actually hit me from behind I would have laughed my ass off at what an idiot you are, you now with your nose broken from your air-bag hitting you in the face and the whole front of your car smashed in with crumple zones and shit. I suppose you thought that if you could push on me, then I'd push on the pickup, and then he'd ... what ... run over the girl on the motorcycle and we'd all just roll her body under our wheels and tear off down the road feeling fully justified in having killed her because, BY GOD, you needed to get to work right now, right?
So, did you get to where you were trying to go? You nearly totalled that car you don't own, along with yourself. But on the plus side, you did give me a big laugh. And I thank you for that. You're funny. Stupid, but funny.
Alright, I had just documented how the arctic blast of winter had been replaced with a warm front that felt almost Springlike here in the southern United States of Crazy, when suddenly the cold wintry temperatures briefly returned. And with them, the calm, cozy, my-heater-is-on-and-making-me-sleepy driving habits of a coffee-addicted people. In short, everything returned to normal.
Then the warm front returned.
This morning the weather was freezing. Everything was fine on the way into work. By noon the temperatures had risen over 20 degrees and the sun was shining brightly. Once again, no coats were needed and the birds were singing happily. It felt nice outside. There are blue skies and puffy white clouds overhead. Sexy Olympic women are on the TV wearing body-hugging clothing that shows off every womanly curve as they fly through the air at 90 mph across the snow, demonstrating with their unequaled viewer ratings why the women's NBA will never succeed on its own without blackmailed corporate training wheels unless they change their uniforms to something tighter and sexier that shows the world "sure we can't dunk like the men, but we look good trying."
Sex on ice
Surely this lovely weather will inspire friendliness and peaceably coexisting on the highways, right?
Oh hell no! People are once again raging out there. I had an old fucker in a crimson Chrysler with a "Roll Tide" sticker on the rear window cut me off in the far right-hand lane. I was already going slow, looking for my gym, so I didn't care. But that wasn't what he wanted. No, he WANTED me to care. So he glared at me in his rear view mirror and jumped on his brakes.
Roll Tide and fuck you
Dude, I'm 5 car lengths behind you. I don't give a fuck. Seriously.
I assumed he was looking for his turn. Sure, he didn't turn on a blinker, but you know how people are. Morons never signal. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
He didn't turn.
Once I realized he did that for my benefit I decided to get rid of the shit head in the usual way. I passed him and got back over, now in front of him, but still a good 30 yards ahead. This should be of no concern to him if he's a sane, rational human being.
He came after me.
Realizing that he had hit his brakes purely to fuck with me, and being unaccustomed to being this warm, I got mad. When I saw the turn for my side-street, I put on my blinker, turned onto my dead-end street, and as I drove towards my gym at the end of the road I saluted him.
You know what I mean. I raised my hand inside my car, aimed in his general direction, and I showed him my finger. Yes, yes, I'm fucking 18-years-old today.
Nevertheless, had he been driving along like a normal person, he wouldn't have even seen my salute. He should have been looking at the traffic ahead and all around him, not at some guy driving away down a side street. But if he was an asshat looking for a fight with me then you know all of his attention would be focused on me for daring to pass him and escape. And thus he would have seen my very friendly one-finger salute.
After I saluted him, he whipped his car 90 degrees off the main road and onto the street behind me. I say 'whipped' but keep in mind he was only going 40 mph so it was more of a slow-motion turn. But to him I'm sure it was exciting.
Anyway, he came after me down the dead-end street which he apparently didn't know was a dead-end street. And I continued on to my gym. At the end of the street, I turned into the parking lot of my gym, got out, and stood there waiting for Mr. Asshat to pull in and try to explain to my foot why he felt outraged at me for passing and saluting him.
Once he realized it was a dead-end and we were going to meet, he lost his nerve. He stopped at the entrance to the parking lot and just sat there staring at me. I stood outside my car, holding my gym bag, and invited him to come join me. While this was going on, one of the guys I sometimes work out with, who stands about 6'4" and is rather thick with muscle, came out and walked towards me as he headed to his car.
"Hey Memphis, what's up?" he smiled and asked. He always smiles when he sees me because when we first met I was in the midst of a joke-off and I had told him and everyone else in the gym every single joke I know, with promises that I would be back armed with even more.
"Nothing much," I replied, "just coming for a workout. Hey, watch out for that old man in that Chrysler there. He's got his panties in a wad and he's looking for someone to screw with in traffic," I said pointing to the Crimson Fucker. Apparently the old fart didn't want any attention drawn to him, like most passive/aggressives, because when my friend turned to look at where I was pointing, Crimson Fucker took off.
I say 'took off' but keep in mind he's old so it was like that Toyota sudden acceleration thing where the driver is sort of vaguely aware that they are continuously speeding up without meaning to.
That's Ms. Bitch to you, bucko!
So anyway, after my workout, I showered and headed back. The weather was warmer than ever. The other day, with the first warm front, every single car on the road seemed to be controlled by a raging lunatic. But today is different. Today it is only the passive/aggressives who seem to be still experiencing the madness of wanting to kill every other person on the road including their own grand-kids who just turned 16 and like to drive fast.
I got stuck behind a woman in a gray Chevy pickup truck driving slow in the passing lane. She sat herself beside a gray Toyota Prius and parked there, matching whatever speed the Prius was doing so that they would remain side-by-side and no one could get anywhere. She was also talking on her cell phone as she was doing this. And she had a kid in a child restraint device tied up in the backseat of the extended cab. I was stuck behind her so I waited for her to speed up or get over. In fact, I waited a damn long time. But she was clearly not interested in allowing anyone to get anywhere, so I flashed my brights one time.
"Blah blah blah" she continued talking on her cell phone and ignoring me. I say 'ignoring' but as she was clearly fully aware of the speed the Toyota next to her was going, at least enough to make sure she stayed right next to him, obviously she was aware of what was around her and what she was doing.
So I flashed my brights again. Still no reaction from her. I was waiting a long, long time between flashes just to make sure she had every possible opportunity to not be a cancerous polyp in the ass of traffic. Once it became clear that this was no accident, I flashed several times in a row, and then began considering my horn. Meanwhile, she slowed slightly so that I was suddenly right on her rear bumper. I allowed her to do this and stayed there, close enough that a person sitting on my hood could easily have placed one foot on my bumper and another on hers without pulling a groin muscle or anything.
Hey, if she doesn't love her truck I sure as hell don't care. I've signaled several times, as the law requires, that she's obstructing traffic. If she adds a collision to that I'm willing to involve the police so we can all have a group discussion of the various traffic laws, even the ones concerning how closely you can follow the vehicle in front of you. I find that when it comes right down to it, most passive/aggressive women really love their shiny vehicles and don't actually want them smashed. Men, when they get mad, they're more like "fuck the car, I'm not putting up with that shit!"
Eventually the Toyota realized what was going on and slowed suddenly. I took the resulting opening the instant it appeared and passed her on the right. She, predictably, sped up and came after me.
Here she comes, here comes Speed Racer! She's a demon on wheels ....
Just up the road, cruising along at a speed somewhat faster than she had been going, a police cruiser came up the on-ramp and merged into traffic. And suddenly Chevy Bitch didn't want to play anymore. She slowed down again and resumed her game of blocking the passing lane, confident that the police never enforce the law with regard to obstructing traffic and so she would be safe even with the presence of the cop. I continued on my way, exiting the highway and merging onto the interstate.
Instantly I encountered more passive/aggressives. But I had 6 lanes to work with so I quickly left most of them behind.
Then I encountered Mr. Dodge Minivan. I was coming up behind an 18-wheeler and needed to get over one lane to the right. Mr. Dodge was back well behind me, in the lane I was moving into. As soon as he saw me coming over he gunned his minivan and blocked me out. Not only did he block me out, but he remained there, making sure that I never got over.
Mr. Dodge Minivan
I was forced to pass the 18-wheeler on the left and then come over 3 lanes in order to get where I intended to be, which put me smack in front of Mr. Assdodge Minivan anyway, much to his apparent surprise and dismay.
I drove on aways, thinking about the utter pointlessness of what he'd done in blocking me out and nearly hitting me. And then I decided I was mad.
I took my foot off the gas and slowed down to let him catch up. He didn't want to catch up, so he took his foot off the gas and slowed down, too.
We did this for awhile. Normally this would be a problem on an interstate where the speed limit is 70 mph, but this town is Passive/Aggressive Hell, so no one thought anything of it. People went around us at 65, 60 and sometimes 55 mph, totally unconcerned with how slow any of us were going. We slowed to 50 and still he would not come near me. So I hit my brakes to slow enough that I could change lanes further to the right by passing behind the car next to me and moved over towards the exit ramp.
Mr. AssDodge, seeing me exiting, regained his manhood, such as it is, and began to speed back up again. But it was a long way to my off-ramp and he ended up next to me for a moment before he realized it. I looked long and hard at him. He stared straight ahead, dressed in his powder blue plaid button-down shirt and khaki pants, gray hair parted lamely on the side like something out of Revenge of the Nerds, refusing to even glance my way for fear that eye contact might make him instantly pee his pants.
I didn't salute him. I didn't honk. I didn't do or say anything. I just thought about the lessons that 15 years of living in Memphis, Tennessee, have taught me. White people really are a bunch of chickenshit cowards. I guess I understand now what my black friends have been trying to tell me. All he had to do was just make eye contact like a man. Sure, he was wrong, but he could look me in the eye and show me that wrong or not, he still had balls.
But he didn't have any balls. That's why he got stuck driving the Dodge minivan while his wife is probably driving the Hemi Charger.
I began this series of blog posts for my own personal information. I was simply documenting odd changes in general behavior of the population as it correlated with weather, lunar or solar events, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc. For the past 2 months the Southern United States has been experiencing arctic weather. This winter in The South hasn't simply been cold, it has been Arctic blast cold. The freezing, snowing, sleeting, icy cold that would normally be dropping snow on Canada over the past 2 months has been dropping it on the Southern U.S. instead, causing quite a problem for the Vancouver Winter Olympics, as their snow is all melting and the temperatures hot enough to cause problems for the athletes up in beautiful British Columbia, where the women are as hot as the weather is cold, and the men are grateful.
Oh Canada!
Recently the record cold blast has abated. It was actually warm this weekend. The warm temperatures in winter have caused the expected result - rain. Today, a rotten, hated Monday, the work day began with the standard rush hour drive into work. Normally people are tired and calm, too groggy to cause much trouble or care about what is going on around them. But this morning the temperature is a balmy 50 degrees F, and the rain has created humidity. So, we're all sitting in our houses with the heat still on, wondering why we feel so warm all of a sudden, sweating as we're brushing our teeth, and sticky by the time we get into our cars to drive to work.
On the drive into work today, before I had even pulled out onto the highway to join the herd, I noticed some insanely aggressive behavior in traffic. People weren't simplyunwilling to let anyone pull out into traffic. No, they were swerving at people trying to pull out into traffic. "Try it, buddy, and I'll fucking kill you! ARRRRRRGH!"
Nevertheless, I managed to wheel myself out into the flow and join the loonies on the path. Instantly I observed that the flow of traffic seemed oddly halting, as we'd race forward, only to all jump on our brakes and slow to a crawl, then race ahead again. Everyone was piled up together. There was no space between cars to spread the traffic out. We were bunched like a group of 8 year olds in a soccer match all leaving our positions to go for the ball, clumped in the center of the field with no one playing defense.
I had a Jeep Wagoneer flying up on my ass, clearly angry that I had managed to pull out into traffic ahead of them, tailgating me to let me know this fact, as if I cared or had in any way wronged them. I was going faster than everyone else, except for the Jeep riding my ass. But he had sped up to do that, so I figured "fuck him." I tried to shake him off by crossing from the far right lane, 3 lanes over into the passing lane. Seeing as we were flying anyway I figured the passing lane was where I wanted to be. He followed me, of course.
I found myself stuck behind a full-sized long-bed 4-door Chevy pickup truck. Everyone was riding the ass of the person in front of them and bunched all around me. 3 lanes of no one getting ahead had me boxed in between the Jeep and the Chevy, so I decided to just stay there. I noticed the Chevy having to hit his brakes a lot. I saw him swerve to the side slightly the way people do when they want to show up in the driver's door mirror of the car in front of them, as if to say "hey you jackass, speed up or get over!" This was precisely what he was saying, in fact.
After much halting progress, slow, fast, slow, fast, I noticed the traffic to my right open up slightly. Just as it did the woman in the tiny car blocking the passing lane and the Chevy in front of me whipped her wheel to the right, flying across the next lane and going onto the shoulder, nearly crashing off the road into the ditch. Then she whipped back to the left and sort of settled into the right-hand lane. The Chevy in front of me quickly sped past her before the crazy, erratic woman could change her mind and whip back over again. I began to move past her as well, expecting to see the usual cell phone attached to her face, explaining everything about her erratic driving. But as I passed her I saw no cell phone. She had both hands on the wheel and was glaring straight ahead, wishing death for all the cars around her.
Sooooo, you drive that shitty normally, eh? No cell phone? Wow, you really suck at driving!
You suck at driving
Further down the road there was more of this sort of thing, crazy people doing crazy things with no apparent reason for it.
By the time I merged onto the Interstate, the Chevy was getting irritated with me behind him. I wasn't riding that close, but on this particular day everyone seemed to be just a little too close. He changed lanes one to the left. I let him go and stayed in the far right lane. But I quickly ran into a jerk going extraordinarily slow and thus needed to get over. Unfortunately, the car in the lane next to him was also going extraordinarily slow. In fact, they were both driving side-by-side going the exact same speed. Fuckers!
As I changed lanes to get past the 2 rolling road blocks, I noticed that all 6 lanes appeared to be blocked by shitheads driving side-by-side all doing roughly the same speed. There was no rhyme or reason to it. There was nothing similar about the drivers to make me think they were intentionally working together to screw us all. There was just a dazed, hazy look on their faces and a general slowness about them that said "Zombies."
By this point, the humidity and frustration of dealing with a pack of elderly asshats was beginning to get to me. I went all the way over the far left lane, the passing lane, and began applying subtle pressure on the zombie blocking that lane, squeezing between him and the zombie who had been next to him just as he crept barely far enough ahead to make room for me to fit. And I do mean 'barely.' There wasn't room for a bird to fly between either bumper as I moved around them. But knowing Zombie Drivers as I do, I knew that if I hesitated for even an instant, the car to my right would instinctively creep forward and block me from getting over, maintaining the 6-lane rolling roadblock and causing me to roll down my passenger side window and communicate to him my feelings on the matter using sign language and a little creative shouting. I managed to avoid all of this and fly on ahead of them.
As I pulled away from the Zombies and instantly encountered more oddly angry drivers, the pattern began to come clear in my mind. Everyone on the road here today, in this unexpected heat and humidity, is RAGING. People aren't just a little bit pissy. People aren't in a daze. People are furious. Some are handling it by doing exactly the speed limit and refusing to budge an inch. Some are going well below the speed limit in the passing lane, on the interstate, enjoying the anger they're causing in the drivers around them. Some are running up the tail of the car in front of them and threatening to kill anyone who doesn't get out of their way. Some are passing on the shoulders.
But it is EVERY SINGLE DRIVER.
I was relieved by the time I got to work. It's Monday and work is the last place I thought I wanted to be. But traffic was so bad that I was actually glad to reach the parking lot alive. I was pretty pissed off by the time I got there. So I sat in my car with the radio on letting my blood pressure drop for a few minutes before turning off the engine and walking inside.
Once at my desk I was immediately greeted by an error message from Microsoft telling me that Excel had crashed. My browser had crashed long ago and was nowhere to be seen. The CPU was jacked up even though I hadn't started working yet. Yep, it's Monday. Fucking Microsoft.
Arrrrrrgh MICROSOFT!
And now for a fun video I stole from the Reluctant Optimist, who stole it from TheoGeo:
Dear Mister Silver Mercedes, you there with the pretentious car and the slicked back hair and your oh so carefully trimmed and perfect beard. I could see clearly what you are. I hope you can. This town has a large enough gay community that there is truly no reason for you to remain in denial about your true self. I could tell from the up close and personal view of you that I got as you practically tried to combine our cars and be with me that you are a man who worries over the tiniest of little details. You are a man who is all about appearances. You are a man who feels that you can do no wrong. Hence your choice of silver for the color of your Mercedes. You are a pretentious gay cunt.
What exactly did you think you were doing? You changed lanes into me and when I honked at you, you started to swerve back into your own lane, but then thought better of it and swerved back into my lane once again, pausing when there was less than an inch between your plastic doors and fenders and mine. We were so close that I could mouth “what the fuck” at you and you could clearly understand what I had just said. Or you could have if you had at least had the balls to turn and look at me like a man.
Oh sorry, I forgot. You’re one of those very girlie gay men, not the macho macho man type at all.
Love me, love my Mercedes
So what was the point of your decision to sit there, straddling two lanes at 70 mph and not giving me one more inch to get past without scraping your doors off? I have to tell you, Ma’am, if you don’t love your Mercedes enough to keep from scraping other people’s cars, I sure as hell don’t. I’ll be more than happy to adjust your paintjob for you as long as your car is in my lane and your insurance is going to pay me for my efforts.
Could you not hear my very, very loud horn? Did you have Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody cranked up at full volume in your car and thus could only hear the sound of Freddie Mercury screaming? Clearly you knew you didn’t have any more room to come over, though, right? Otherwise, why were you straddling both lanes and refusing to get back into your own lane? It was certainly clear enough in your lane that you could easily do so. Why continue the futile attempt at shoving me aside? I had a car on the other side of me and was not about to swerve out of my own lane and hit someone else simply to spare your Mercedes some paint damage. That’s all on you. The only one of us not in their lane was you. The only cunt on the highway at that moment was you. The only one in need of some car insurance and a traffic ticket was you.
I drove all the way past your pretentious German shitpile with my horn held down, and still you never got back into your own lane. You acted as if once you stuck half your car in my lane, it was yours and you weren’t going to let it go for anything. I can’t tell you how tempting it was to tap your fenders with mine and then just sit there riding next to you, giving you no possible chance of coming over at all. I have to admit, I was curious as to what you would do if I had just held my position there with my face parallel to yours, staring right at you as you oddly chose to look in the rearview mirror at no one rather than over at me, the person you were attempting to smash out of their lane. Clearly you aren’t a brave man. You seem to enjoy pretending to be brave using your car, but when your intended victim actually gets in your face and looks you straight in the eye, all pretense of being any kind of man at all evaporates and you avoid eye contact lest you inadvertently wet your pants in fear.
It's fucking hot here in the tropical Southern States of America. We usually don't have our real heat wave until July and August, but this year we're starting early. We're already dealing with a heat index of around 105. And not surprisingly, this is having an effect on jackasses in traffic.
The most common effect here in the Passive Aggressive Capital of the United States, is to cause drivers to suddenly swerve in front of faster drivers and then, for no reason at all, hit their brakes. It's called the "I want to fucking kill you for no reason other than that I'm a cunt" manuever and it is very effective at raising the blood pressure of the victims in the target vehicle.
I'm a cunt, but my car is very clean and shiny
Just today I had a total pussy in a dark blue (very conservative) Toyota luxury car cut over 3 lanes to hit his brakes in front of me, not once, but 3 times in a row, as he looked at me in his rearview mirror. I gestured to him with a "what the fuck" throwing up of the hands and then he changed lanes once again, always without signaling, and got into the actual lane he was aiming for so that he could turn. I briefly considered following him into the parking lot and pinning his car in somewhere, but I needed to get to the gym.
Not finding the person I was looking for at the gym, I left and headed home. As I approached an intersection where I needed to get into the left-hand turn lane to turn left, a redneck in a beat-up filthy old Jeep wagoneer, seeing me coming up behind him, about to go past him on the left into the turn lane, hit his brakes in an obvious attempt to cause me to hit him from behind for no reason other than, say it with me, he's a cunt.
Luv my Jeep, Yeeee HA!
I briefly glanced at his rear bumper and concluded that he wouldn't really notice the damage from a good ramming considering how torn up it already was (clearly he does this shit a lot) before I wedged myself perfectly between him and the shoulder as I slipped past him without missing a beat. A major victory for me!
As I sat in the intersection waiting to cross and go my way, I heard him honking at me. I looked in my rearview mirror to see that he was a filthy redneck with all his windows down. He slipped his Jeep into neutral there in the passing lane as he was barely crawling down the highway, and he revved his engine at me.
Seriously.
It sounded like someone was revving their lawn mower. It was a huge piece of shit.
I turned to see if I could possibly be seeing and hearing what I thought I was, only to see him waving his arm out the window at me. I couldn't tell if he was flicking me off or just waving as if to say "you beat me. I'm a total loser. You win." Either way, his Jeep was pathetic and so was he.
This is how it's been here the past few days, as the heat has come to stay awhile and we are all going insane moving from the blazing sun into the blasting air conditioning, giving us the runs and making our heads hurt. The level of crazy is at it's annual high and everyone is on edge. Perhaps we'll get lucky and I might witness a traffic shooting? If I get the chance, I'll take pictures so you can enjoy it, too.
I do it because I care. I'm a nice guy like that. You're welcome.
One 18-wheeler, a red light, and an old asshole on a long and tiring day. The 18-wheeler stops for the red light. He's in the right-hand lane. Behind him is the old asshole in his minitruck. I'm coming up to the intersection in my 4x4, in the left-hand lane. Just as I approach, the minitruck in the left lane cuts in front of me without so much as a glance or a blinker and rolls forward towards the intersection next to the 18-wheeler and a white van in front of that. I'm now standing on my brakes trying to keep from killing the fucking asshole, skidding flat spots on all 4 of my tires thanks to the old shithead.
When he finally bothers to look in his rearview mirror and sees me skidding behind him, he intentionally stops short, trying even harder to make me hit him. My 4x4 weighs 4600 pounds. His minitruck weights 2800 pounds. I've been rear-ended in a minitruck before. It was the only auto accident in which I have ever been hurt. He and his elderly wife, sitting like a lump next to him, would have spent the rest of their lives using those stupid aluminum 'walkers' to get around if I hadn't managed to skid to a halt in time, no thanks to him.
Then he sat there at the light, glaring at me in his mirror, as if I were the asshole.
Seeing his bloodshot eyes peering at me with seething aggression in his mirror, I did what I always do for these passive/aggressive fuckwits. I took his picture.
Once he saw me taking his photo, suddenly Fuckwit felt like playing nice. He even rediscovered his blinkers and promptly used them after the light turned green to signal to me and the 18-wheeler that he was getting over and out of my way. How very nice of him, eh?
Along with his photo, I also have his license plate number. I'm thinking that in this instance I'm going to go ahead and look up his address so that I might print out an official "Asshole of the Month" award and mail it to him along with his photo. Maybe he'll frame it and hang it over his mantle?
Hello Mr Passive/Aggressive. How are you today? You seem to be enjoying yourself as you crawl onto the interstate at 40 mph, gleefully piling up a line of cars behind you. Your bright red Hyundai is like a waving flag in front of a long line of charging bulls, people who might actually like their jobs and want to get on their way to work, but can't because of you. That's exactly what you intend, too, isn't it?
I was a long ways back from you, but even I could see you playing your game, fucking everyone over for your own personal enjoyment. The instant there was a second lane to the on-ramp, several women passed you on the right in that short 50 yard span of road that exists for drivers to merge. They clearly prefered that option rather than wait to see if you were actually going to force us all to try to merge into the 70 mph interstate traffic at 40 mph. You risked the lives of every single person behind you, and you did it on purpose. You did it because this is what you do. This is your thing. It's who you are.
Even from back in the pack where I was, I could see the signs of a passive/aggressive at play. I could see your bright red speck far ahead, with an army of drivers trapped behind you. I said to myself, "if this is intentional, he'll move to the next lane over as soon as he can in anticipation of angry drivers behind him getting over to pass him. He'll do it specifically to make sure he remains in their way for as long as humanly possible."
Sure enough, that is exactly what you did. You cut off all the cars stuck directly behind you as they moved to pass and finally be free. You can't stand for your victims to escape. Like all passive/aggressives, you hold them in their prison cells for as long as you can, cutting over as you see them moving to pass and making sure they can't get by without maximum risk and effort, enraging them as much as you can. You do this because it gives you pleasure. In fact, hurting other people is perhaps the only thing in your life that gives you any happiness at all. Isn't it?
When I caught up with you, having never gotten out of the slow lane myself because I knew that's the LAST place a rolling roadblock like you would be, I couldn't help but notice the telltale signs of a raging cunt all over you. Your car is tiny, a 4-cylinder death-trap. Despite the heat, you had the windows rolled down, presumably because you think it saves gas and you are a cheap-assed bastard. The girl with you was your daughter, yes? Poor girl was so embarrassed. The fire-engine red color you chose for your brand new air-conditionerless car tells me that you are a very aggressive passive/aggressive. You are mad as hell at the world, aren't you? As if that weren't enough, the bumper sticker you placed dead center of your rear bumper said it all, "PLEASE GET CLOSER - I like hitting my brakes." You are such an angry cunt that you even advertise what you are doing. Most passive/aggressives are bitches who desperately want to lash out at the world, but all the while want that 'plausible deniability' that seems so ultra important to people like you.
"Oh, you must have been going awfully fast when you hit me. I didn't even see you coming."
Yes you did. You crossed over 5 lanes to cut me off and lock up your brakes, bitch. Not only did you see me, but you targeted me.
Ah, but this is not you. Your anger is boiling over to the point that you can't even pretend to be fucking us all over by accident. You want us all to know that it's on purpose. You want to stand on the roof of your car like a surfboard and flick the whole world off as you clog up traffic and send teenagers skidding down into the ditch and soccer moms crashing into the concrete divider, all because normal people are afraid to hit you.
I know you saw me. I know you did because my big-assed 4x4 is a magnet to passive/aggressive cunts like you.
I like this word, 'cunt', which I have adopted from my favorite people, the Aussies. It describes people like you so perfectly.
I know you saw my big truck with the gleaming chrome push bars welded to the front, a bumper for a bumper, because every passive/aggressive driver in the Rocket City is drawn to my big truck with the scary bumper. They long to get in front of me and hit their brakes. They can't help themselves but want to challenge me because they assume things about me based on my vehicle. They don't know about my tiny little minitruck and couldn't comprehend that I might ever drive such a vulnerable vehicle and not be bothered by it. They assume I'm as angry as they are and begging for a fight. And they treat me as if I am.
You wanted to get over as soon as you saw me. You wanted to cut in front of me. But I have had a lifetime of experience with people like you, having grown up with a mother just like you. I can read your mind, predict your every thought, your every move, anticipate your strategies and counter them before you even realize what it is that you plan to do. I made damn sure I was too far over for you to get to as I passed you by, reading your bumper sticker and peering into your tiny little car to see what sort of bitch was trying so hard to kill the other drivers on this interstate. I saw you there, Mr. Cheap-ass Engineer, with the windows rolled down, your faded white hair blowing in the breeze and your baggy belly hanging down into your lap, the only part of your entire weak, aging body with any size to it at all. You are the epitomy of weakness. You are the reason black men go around looking angry all the time, because pussies like you nearly wet themselves when confronted directly, especially by a black man. They enjoy fucking with you, and you in turn enjoy fucking with every single person on the highway every chance you get.
Your daughter didn't look too happy to be riding with you. And your wife, she's left you, hasn't she? She left your ass long ago and found herself another man. Or maybe another woman. Or a good vibrator. Anything must have been better than staying with the walking human vagina that is you.
And this makes you angry, too, doesn't it? She got everything and you got a big golden shaft shoved straight up your ass. I understand. I know it isn't fair. Nothing in America is fair anymore. Everything is political and white men like you have no one fighting for you. Thus, you have no rights, as you undoubtably discovered when you entered divorce court and got reamed.
So, Mr. Angry Man, what did you do about it? Did you try to fight for your rights and the rights of others like you? Did you join an organization that lobbies for change? Or did you buy a tiny red car, symbolizing your impotence and your rage, and slap a bumper sticker on it announcing to the world that you're mad as hell and you're not going to take it anymore? Did you DO SOMETHING about it, or did you just roll out into traffic, obstructing everyone who comes across you, filled with simmering rage and trying to kill us all in the most cowardly way you could think of - using your car?
We both know the answer to this, don't we? You make me sick, you tiny, angry, faded little man. You aren't a man at all. You're a 12-year-old girl just getting her period for the first time, cramping and raging with hormones like a werewolf under a full moon. You don't make any effort to help yourself, and along with yourself, others like you. You don't do anything useful to push for positive change. Somewhere you probably have a son, whom you know is going to face worse things than you have, because it just keeps getting worse here every day. You could do something about that. You could fight. You could get off your ass and make some kind of effort, if not for yourself, then for your son. But you won't. You just want to sit in that blazing red car with the angry bumper sticker and drive around infuriating everyone you come across. Don't you?
Don't you?
You useless cunt.
If only I'd had my camera with me. I'd like to post your photo on the internet for all the world to see and to mock. More than that, I'd like to send a video clip of your driving to the Rocket City police, along with a clear shot of your license plate, and a letter demanding that they enforce the laws governing the minimum speed on this interstate as well as laws prohibiting obstructing traffic by driving slowly in the passing lane. These are your favorite pasttimes, and I know that.
Ah well, I'll see you again. I know I will. That firey red car with the white banner proclaiming your rage isn't hard to spot. In fact, you don't want to be hard to spot. That's the only thing that separates you from all the bitchy old ladies.
Yes, I'll see you again. And when I do, I'm going to make you an internet star.
Question: what happens when a 2800 pound minitruck gets hit by a 4800 pound full-sized truck? Did you ever think about this? Oh wait, you weren't thinking about anything, were you? No, you were just flipping around in traffic like a dodo bird with its head cut off, without any blinkers, without bothering to look and see if there was any room at all for your stupid ass to jam in between two trucks without warning, as those two trucks were stopping at a red light and had no room for you. And then, as if to earn yourself extra asshole points, you even stopped short just to fuck with me even further!
But wait, there's more!
Yes, I came within inches of hitting you. Yes, I would have torn through the bed of your piece of shit minitruck like a Ginsu knife through a beer can. Yes, you would have finally had a reason for that handicapped tag on your rear bumper. Because the effect of being crushed between my truck and the truck in front of you would have snapped your empty swelled head around like a stoned high school girl at an Ozzie Osbourne concert.
Brain salad
You aren't very bright, I can see that. You drive like a drunk, oblivious to everyone else around you. In traffic you're like a Federal Judge, convinced that none of the laws apply to you and all that crap you went through to qualify for your license is a lifetime guarantee that you can trample on everyone else at will with no consequences to yourself whatever.
You're a stupid ass. I could see that you hadn't washed your hair in quite some time. Oh, and you left your fucking door open. Or perhaps you just didn't feel like closing it? I realize that the most mentally challenged among us are all about their feelings, with no respect or consideration for logic, truth, reason or any of that classically masculine sort of thinking. Perhaps you were too busy fumbling with your Hannah Montana CD to notice that you hadn't shut your door before you slammed into gear and took off down the road like Little Red Riding Hood on her way to Grandmother's house?
Your fucking door is open
I do have to ask, though, what possessed you to suddenly repent of your assholeness and play nice? I mean, I appreciate that you suddenly discovered your blinker and even changed lanes to get your slow, reckless, selfish ass out of the left-hand lane. It's just that I didn't see any cops, although they are always hiding right there at the place where you magically discovered traffic laws. Were you sorry for your sins? Did Jesus kick you in the ass? Or were you secretly hoping I'd zoom past you in a huff and get a ticket for speeding?
Say 'cheese'
I guess you noticed that I didn't react to you at all, didn't ride your ass like a high school boy, didn't zoom past you when you got over like any normal angry driver would, didn't flick you off, didn't pass you on the right before you had a chance to get over. I just took your picture.
Yeah, that seemed to get your attention. Funny how that works. So many people just like you, banging around in traffic being total shits to everyone, the minute I pull out my camera and take a few pictures, you suddenly find the 'nice' buried deep in your heart and start playing by the rules like the rest of us.
I love my tiny little keychain camera.
* Addendum: Something is in the air. Everyone in traffic is bitchy. At lunch a woman in an economy car did almost the exact same thing to me as the Asshole of the Week, except that she stopped 10 car lengths from the car in front of her, looking in her rearview mirror the entire time, trying as hard as she could to cause a wreck with me. We hadn't been fighting. There had been nothing going on between us. And had I been riding her ass I most certainly would have hit her. So what was her problem?
I started this series back when no one read my blog at all. It was simply an effort to document for my own benefit the apparent correlation between changes in environment and people's behavior, especially in traffic. We had a cold front move in 3 days ago, dropping our temperature below freezing. Now the cold front is moving out and it is warming back up to normal Spring temperatures. Every time we have a dramatic shift in temperature people react like this. I should have been looking for it. I should have expected it.
KILL KILL KILL!
* Note: yes, I stole that last photo from your blog. There will likely be others.
It's Monday again, dammit. I have nearly posted several different things, but pulled them all back. And ironically I have nothing specific to say, so who knows where this post is going?
I have spent a great deal of my limited free time the past few weekends trying to put together a video for a contest I want to win. This past weekend I tried to put all my footage into one final, coherent file to submit, only to come to the inescapable conclusion that the whole thing is shit. And then the computer crashed and LOST IT. I was screaming "FUUUUUUCK" at 4 a.m. on Sunday. I'm not joking.
The deadline for this thing is this coming Sunday and I haven't got anything worthwhile. My time is super limited and I only have access to my tools for video editing on weekends. Oh hell.
A year ago I paid $1000 to have new air-conditioning installed in my big-assed 4x4. I live in The South, which is America's equivalent of Melbourne, Australia, with its tennis-pro-melting, forest-killing, record-setting heat-wave. Except that we also have horrific humidity to go with the heat, so that not only do you feel like you are in a microwave oven in summer, but it also feels like you're standing in a bowl of soup. In short, it gets nasty when it's hot here. Air-conditioning is not optional.
So, $1000 one year ago for air and as of last night my compressor was roaring like an angry lion, which is a sure sign of early death. I'm pretty sure they won't repack the bearings and send me on my way. These days everything is made in China and Mexico and when it fails, which is often because, well, its from China or Mexico, no one knows how to fix it anymore. So they just chuck it and force you to pay for a new one. I don't much feel like paying for another $1000 air-conditioning compressor. I want the one I paid for to fucking WORK. Actually, it currently DOES work, but it's also currently winter here in the States, so I don't need it. What I need it to do is to stop roaring because I know it is going to die altogether long before summer gets here and then, when I do need it, it won't be there. Also, when it finally locks up completely I'll be stranded, because it'll break the belt on the front of my engine when it goes. Bastard piece of shit!
Last night, as I was driving from Memphrica back to North Alabama to prepare for my week of working, I encountered the usual weaving drunks. Sunday is ironically a day in which liquor sales are not allowed in most Southern states. Yet it is also the day in which I encounter the most drunk drivers. None of the weaving drunks crashed into anyone last night, so I didn't worry about them too much. But this morning something unusual happened.
I was driving north on the parkway, heading into work, surrounded by a sea of Alabama hammerhead traffic sharks, the sort of animal that circles you and then gets in front of you in order to drive as slowly as possible. Their goal is to kill you by causing you to become angry and either crash as you attempt to get past them, or perhaps have a stroke and die of heart failure. It's a passive/aggressive attack. Anyway, this morning I came upon a black Corvette hammerhead shark in the left-hand lane, going 45 mph. He had someone stuck behind him and was enjoying playing with his victim when he noticed me passing on the right in my roaring, soon-to-be-lacking-air-conditioning truck. He of course instantly sped up to 65 mph in an attempt to block me and prevent me from passing. But I ignored him and passed him anyway.
This made him very angry. So he began to tailgate me.
Tailgating a full-sized 4-wheel-drive truck in a Corvette is a bit like a possum trying to push a horse. The horse isn't likely to notice and may accidentally step on the possum. But in the meantime, the possum feels powerful, as if he's really accomplishing something.
Like most hammerheads in traffic, the Corvette quickly lost interest in chasing me from behind and went back to blocking the poor sucker still trapped behind him. Also, we passed a cop who had someone pulled over and was writing them a ticket, and the driver of the Corvette, as I soon observed, had reason to fear being pulled over himself. So he quickly slowed down and forgot about me.
As he fell further and further back behind me I noticed that he was weaving. I had noticed it before, but not paid much attention. He hadn't been weaving as badly before, but now he was weaving badly enough that he nearly hit a car next to him. And he was clearly unaware that he was doing it.
He was drunk.
This was a first. I've always encountered more than the normal amount of passive/aggressive bitches in traffic here in Rocketown, but this was the first time I had ever encountered a drunken one at 8 o'clock in the morning, driving in rush hour traffic.
Ah, wait a minute! Today is 'Presidents Day', a meaningless holiday created by merging Washington's birthday with Lincoln's birthday. Both days used to be a federal holiday for all government employees, but then the communists took over and demanded that we create a new holiday for Martin Luther King Jr instead. So they merged the birthdays of our Founding Fathers in order to make room for MiLK Day.
So, today all government employees, which are about half the people in the Rocket City, are off work. And this guy, cruising aimlessly in his black Corvette, drunk off his ass, must be a government employee. He must be enjoying the day by driving around stoned and screwing with people who have to get to work. That explains it!
So, mystery solved. Yay me. I'm Adrian Monk.
Meanwhile, my compressor is still roaring and I'm pissed about it.
Speaking of pissed, that reminds me, the New Government has begun a program to fuck with ammunition for guns, trying to track buyers, which has already been ruled unconstitutional, force manufacturers to mix taggets into the gunpowder of every bullet, which has already been tried and found to screw with the firing of it, and also to invent primers which expire and fail after 6 months, leaving homeowners to be killed when attempting to defend their families with non-firing weapons because of faulty ammunition. Most importantly of all, though, individual citizens will be unable to fight against a corrupt regime in any sort of American Revolution against tyranny because our ammo will turn to junk while the now-all-powerful government's won't. My Wife heard about this and asked me to go buy ammunition. This is the first time she has ever asked me to go buy anything related to guns, so you know funky things are happening here. It didn't take long, did it? I have a feeling, though, that there isn't going to be a single box of bullets left anywhere in this city because I am late in hearing about this and all the other citizens who are paying attention will have already gone out and bought it all up. Also probably already bought up will be really expensive military-style rifles that I would never buy under normal circumstances (because they cost so fucking much) and don't much care to go pursuing now.
Oh well, I plan on moving to beautiful Australia anyway at some point. What do I care? My biggest concern right now is the embarrassing fact that I'm not certified for scuba diving and I can't surf. Oh, what a lousy Australian I'm going to be!
