Message Received

I am a woman with faults. Many faults. For example,  I have more than my fair share of snarkiness. This particular trait can be portrayed as cleverness in this here blog, but in the real world, I'm guessing that my husband sometimes wishes I were less "clever." But even with all my faults, there are times when I am quite considerate. One of these times is when I am in my car. I usually try very hard to be aware of the drivers around me. Since having kids, I don't drive as fast as I used to and, as such, I don't hang out in the left lane where I don't belong. And if I am driving along in the right lane and a car begins driving in the left lane next to me at the exact same speed as me, oblivious to the cars stacking up behind us with no way of passing, I slow down or speed up so that the folks behind us can get by. This is not to say I've never inadvertently cut someone off or failed to use my turn signal, but in general, I just try to be a courteous driver.

And this is why it PISSES ME OFF when other people act like A**HOLES when they are in their cars.

As you may have guessed, this happened to me today.

I did not get much sleep last night. 4yo was up, then the 7mo was up, then the 7mo wouldn't go back to sleep. Daddy got up with the kids so I could sleep in, but the 4yo had other ideas. So I eventually got up, but was crazy tired. No caffeine in the house, so I headed to McDonald's for a $1 monster sized Diet Coke. (Sure it's cheaper at the gas station, but they don't have a drive-thru and this was a pre-shower caffeine run.)

I pull in to the McDonald's parking lot and there is a car at the drive-thru speaker ordering. There is a second car which is in the drive-thru lane, but is a full car length behind the first car and has its hazards on. I paused a moment and then decided that since the guy had his hazards on he was clearly trying to communicate something to the other drivers around him. I figured that "something" to be that he was pulled over and not really in the drive-thru line. Apparently, I was mistaken. What he was really trying to communicate was, "Hey, everybody. I'm an a**hole in a silver sedan!"

Since I did not get this message from his hazard lights alone, I made the CRAZY mistake of pulling around this car that was not moving and had its hazard lights on. Guy then must have realized that I didn't get his message, the one about him being an a**hole in a silver sedan, and decided to try to communicate it some other way. So he of course lays on his horn and starts screaming out his window at me about how I just cut in front of him in line.

So this next mistake was my bad. I still did not fully appreciate the message he was trying to communicate, though the poor guy was clearly doing his best to communicate to me his message of his a**holeness with the limited faculties available to him.   So being that it's a beautiful spring day and I've got my window down, I say back to him in the sweetest, most non-confrontational manner I can (really, no sarcasm, I was trying to be nice), "I'm really sorry. I thought since you had your hazards on that..."

That's as much as I got out before he just started yelling at me again.

Really? WTF???

It's not like I'm never wrong, in fact, it happens rather frequently. But I wasn't. And even if I was, I was trying to be nice. I was apologizing for the misunderstanding. W.T.F.? 

Oh wait, maybe I've been misunderstanding this guy's message.

Ohhhhhhh! You're a huge a**hole in a silver sedan!!!! I get it now! I'm sorry. I was never very good at charades. But don't you worry, anonymous a**hole in a silver sedan, I've got a blog and I'll be sure to get your message out there.

Ass.