A little street encounter
And I'm still smiling
Today is the last day of a week-long journalism camp which I’ve co-taught with a colleague at University of New Haven.
I’m exhausted, but the students were awesome. I had to get back into the habit of getting up early and driving on I-95, but it is Friday and I made it. The students have said they’ve enjoyed the exercises and lessons, so cool. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
The camp ends at 4:30 so every day, which means I’m in rush-hour traffic going through West Haven and then New Haven and then for a stretch along I-95 until I get to my exit. One day this week, I was in a long line of traffic going through two stoplights to get to 95. It was one of those muggy days and I had my windows down because I’d been in air-conditioning all day and no thank you.
A VA hospital is just off the street on my route home, and cars are usually lined up to get onto the street I travel toward the interstate, and most of us are polite and let at least one car in before we pull forward. Life is more civilized that way. Besides, these people work with veterans.
Suddenly, once I’d done the neighborly thing, a black SUV with dark windows pulled up on my right where there is no lane, as if they were going to force me…into oblivion? There is only one lane heading toward I-95 and I thought, No sir. You shall not pass.
I am nothing if not an aggressive driver, so I pulled ahead so that the interloper would have to ask him/herself: Do I feel lucky? Is this gray-haired old lady going to let me in?
She was not.
Then the other car’s driver’s window slid down and at the wheel was a really handsome young man in a do-rag saying something I couldn’t hear. What the hell, I thought, so I asked him, only a little exasperated, “Where are you going?”
He grinned and pointed to a car that was at that moment racing past my line of cars on the left, in the opposing traffic lane (which thankfully was empty).
“I wanted to be like him,” he said, and he (I thought sheepishly) shrugged. He was grinning so much I had to laugh. I told him to pull on ahead of me, that I was just being a turd, anyway.
“You said ‘turd,’” he said, laughing and I shrugged. “Thanks, ma,” he said, and as the window slid up, he said, “I like your hair” so I responded, “I like yours too,” and then I let him pull in front of me, laughing. The young man drove like crap, but he knew enough to compliment a woman on her hair.
I don’t know why this exchanged pleased me so much. I guess it was one of those human moments. The young man was being a turd and he acknowledged it. Ditto for me. Letting him cut in front of me didn’t cost me anything, and I went home with a story.
Have a wonderful weekend, whatever weird exchanges you may have.
Count yourself lucky that you were not a victim of a road rage incident.
Good on you! I wasn’t aggressive until I had to be driving to Bridgeport before Route 8 was finished, was a nightmare. And like most, I was fine with letting one car in but only one car. After all I was driving an old beat up Rambler wagon!
Now of course, many years later I drive a newer car and don’t want any damage, but find the thing that angers me is when the signs tell you a lane is closed ahead. Here in the lovely tri-state area, people look for every inch they can get and are not willing to move over and wait. But then I travel to upstate NY or basically anywhere else, and people instantly move over and wait their turn. They let others go in front of them especially if they’re from out of state. It’s orderly and amazing to me. They don’t see themselves as the “special “ people that have to be first every time.
Have a great weekend everyone!