Flip the bird

There is a reason I don't flip the bird. Actually there are a couple of reasons, and they dovetail quite nicely with the reasons I don't honk my horn and I don't merge in construction at the last possible second.

The reasons are 1. I have horrible luck and 2. I usually end up feeling bad, guilty, or embarrassed about my outburst.

An example. The other day, I was driving the speed limit on a residential street, and this red Pontiac Sunfire zooms up behind me. Usually I just mutter "what's your big hurry, asshole?" to myself, but on this particular occasion, it really pissed me off, so I tapped my brake. Yep, I did. And I know that this driving move is frowned upon, but seriously, the car was all but in my backseat. So the driver of the Sunfire honks, several times, then proceeds to step on the gas and pass me (in a no passing lane).

Without even looking at my target, I rolled my window all the way down and stuck my whole entire arm out and waived around "the bird" like a crazy woman. And then I glanced over at the offender. And she. was. very. large. and mean-looking. And she seemed pretty upset about my gesture.

She swerved in front of me and mirrored my own obscene salute, but with even more flair and vigor. And anger. Which made me um...a little nervous. I left a wide berth between her car and mine, quite sure that at any moment, she was going to throw her car in park and stomp out into the street to kick my ass.

It turned out that she didn't beat me to a bloody pulp, but what did happen was that a block up, there was a red light. No matter how slow I went, and I went sloooooooow...I still ended up totally stopped and unpleasantly close to her (though I would have been uncomfortable at any distance shorter than about a 5K). I mean to tell you, I was near enough to see her red eyes glaring like the devil in her rearview mirror. Thankfully, I went unscathed. But this is the type of thing that happens to me when I flip the bird.

It's the same with honking my horn. The three times I've been irritated enough to lay on the horn, my victims were undeserving, like an old lady turning into her church.

And I don't even try to be one of those people that merges at the last second in construction, because I guarantee that a semi truck would block me, and all the other drivers would cheer. Or I'd end up butted up to the giant blinking arrow sign on wheels, (the one that tells you if you aren't in the other lane yet, you're screwed) with my turn indicator on, sheepishly begging someone to let me over. All the drivers who already made the merge would simultaneously hug the bumper of the car ahead of them and flip me the bird.