June 20, 2009
What Cindy Said
We’re driving out of a parking lot in Rich Republican Town when an old guy starts to walk in front of us without looking, then stops and glares at us (white buzz cut, dark aviator glasses, white polo shirt, khaki shorts), and whips his hand in a Move It motion. Cindy rolls her window down as we pass and says “Stand down, Major!”
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Love it! “who is your superior officer?”
Butthead! Kick me in the jimmy!
To Cindy, I say THANK YOU! The Fancy Avian Platter arrived! I don’t have your email so I’ll thank you here. It’s marvelous, already hanging on our wall. As soon as the sun comes out I’ll take a picture of it in place. Besides a few things we bought back from Africa, it is the only thing on our wall as everything else is still in storage. Thank you! Our dwelling is warmer indeed.
Is this some kind of Arrested Development reference? I feel so out of touch.
While we’re thanking Cindy for things: Cindy! I have not left the house today—nor, even, with a very few minor exceptions, the living room—but I bothered to get dressed just so I could wear the lovely earrings you sent. I like to think of them as little umbrellas that are warding the depression-rays away from my head. Not that that’s working, but it pleases me to imagine that it might. Thank you, sweet lady.
Cindy love-fest! I want to thank Cindy . . . well, Cindy knows and I know, and all of the rest of y’all, I’ll say only that it was sweet and spontaneous and genuine and that it kept me safe and afloat through a perfect storm.
Gosh, y’all–you’re welcome! I’m glad the platter and earrings made their way safely to NY. I love sending presents.
And India, what I said to the old fart has no reference–the guy had retired military written all over him, and the words just tumbled out. I have to admit, they tickled me silly–especially making him a major, instead of a colonel or general. Daryl nearly crashed the car when I did it We’re like two adolescents, I tell you. I wonder how we’ll be when we’re really old.
Cindy, dear Cindy. I am SO glad that you actually verbalized something to this poor misguided soul. I am wondering if this irritating pedestrian behavior might be embedded within the approaching virulence of the impending Swine Flu pandemic.
As I read that he “whips his hand in a ‘Move It’ motion”, I am reminded of the countless KINDLY drivers in Kansas City MO. You know the type; the ones who will stop traffic to allow someone to enter and then do a hand-waving (from inside the vehicle, mind you) which says, “please, you first” (no really, I’ve checked, and it seems like your turn to go, even though I have the right of way, and your plight seems more dire than my own).
And in the stopping of this traffic all around them, some other drivers aren’t stopping or behaving in a KINDLY way towards said entrant, and putting the entering driver at even greater peril to life and limb and custom body work, which is so highly lauded in our neck of the woods.
And then, of a sudden, the mood shifts, and the gracious and KINDLY driver decides that (“even though it was my turn, muthah-fuckah, in the first place, but my mama raised me right and I was just trying to do a kindness, and you’re too stupid to have realized it, and now I’ve been forced to move forward”) they must engage the vehicle in Drive once again.
So, I say, kindliness is highly overrated and should be avoided at all costs.
Oh, Danny, you crack me up. The funny thing is that I’m one of those overly-considerate drivers, always aware of those around me and slowing to let others in whenever possible. I always assumed that this kind of driving behavior was considered admirable by other drivers, even the impatient, type-A drivers of Dallas. But several years ago Daryl and I were visitng an old friend in Connecticut–a truly kind person–who launched into a tirade against “those motherfuckers ahead of me who slow down to let someone in and never stop to think they’re letting them cut in line in front of me and everyone behind me, I just hate those motherfuckers.”
I’m still a considerate driver who lets people in, but now I also wave at the car behind me as I do it. They probably hate me even more for that.
I’ll tell you, though, that guy today? We probably should have run over him.
I generally suspect drivers who appear to cede their own right of way of trying to trick me.
For what it’s worth, I never do it when it will impede traffic. And I never cede my right of way at 4-way stops or traffic lights, which is just confusing and unnecessary. I simply see no harm, if I am stopped in a line of traffic and someone is waiting to merge into that line, in letting the person merge ahead of me. Or, especially when there’s construction and a lane is closed, I always let at least one car from the affected lane into my lane. That kind of thing. Please know that I’m not one of those assholes who drives in the right lane of the freeway and slows down to a near stop whenever someone creeps into the on-ramp. I hate those motherfuckers.
The only people I tend to take issue with are the drivers who, despite seeing everyone merge and signs posted for a closed lane, will speed by in that lane until the cones or barricade presents itself. This is when they try to merge. Aggressively. Those drivers should be SHUNNED. I tend to get peeved at the babyfoot that lets them in.
Oh, I NEVER let those assholes in. I glare at them. And they’re always on their goddamned phones.
Yeah! I can’t stand those shitheads. It’s like they think everybody else just wanted to wait in that long line. I also have a complex gesture I make when I get up beside a person who is oblivious to the trouble he or she has caused due to being on the phone: I look at the person until eye contact occurs, then I make an exagerated hanging-up-the-phone gesture, followed by a child’s version of managing the steering wheel. One of these days I’m going to have a wreck due to the elaborate nature of my signal. Or–since this is TX–I’ll get shot.
Daryl, is your child’s version of steering the wheel anything like Andrew’s version of driving back from the airport?
Mary, that’s exactly what it is like! Andrew’s baby steering wheel.
Mary–Yes! Also, when I was a kid I thought driving required a constantly active steering motion. Maybe that was because the big cars my parents drove had the giant steering wheels and the power steering that required many full rotations of the wheel just to make a simple turn. Parallel parking typically caused shoulder injury.
YOU (finger-pointing motion directed away from self) + DRIVE (the baby driving motion) + ME (finger-pointing motion directed at self) + CRAZY (the universal reverse-wheeling dual-finger motion connoting ‘crazy’).