Potholes and A**holes

To my horrible witch of a neighbor, regarding your behavior this morning;

I park my car every night in an alley behind my street that has garages lined up for every duplex unit on the block. We are at the very end of the dead end alleyway and parking is no joyous occasion. The alley is, in the cold seasons, treacherous, narrow and never shoveled and in the hot ones, filled with potholes that look like craters have fallen from the sky- and the holes are always filled with old rain water. Dirty old rain water.

To get to this alley of wonder, you go down a small little mini alley off of the main street with a tight turn to get onto the big alley where the garages live.

Setting established, lets move on.

Ok, so in my year of living in my place, other than having 2 flat tires which I suspect has something to do with the potholes and perpetual construction in our back alley, I have never had parking issues. My immediate neighbors are courteous and, because when you exit to the street the visibility is marred by some overgrown hedges, I have found people driving on the street to be super aware of you coming out since you cannot be super aware of them. It is this unspoken rule on my quiet friendly, family oriented street that we respect the alley entrance and no one will get hurt.

Well. This morning I awoke to snow and as a commuter, snow only means one thing; that people will shed every inch of common decency and drive like reckless maniacs on any given road. I leave early on such days to avoid the inevitable frustration of car X riding my tail with only an inch between us on slippery roads or car Y cutting in front of me with no signal or warning on said slippery streets. I hate people on days like today but this morning brought me a whole new kind of driver, my dear neighbor in her silver SUV, blond hair, probably in her 50’s, worst woman of life.

Here’s what happened. After sliding down the alley in my small compact sedan, maneuvering it around the sharp turn covered in snow and ice, and creeping up to the street exit I was faced with this wonderful specimen of person who was trying to come into the alley. Now this is not the first time I have experienced a I-want-to-get-out-and-you-are-coming-in exchange but the usual response is for person coming in to reverse a tad and allow person getting out to get out. No such luck today.

I watched as she aggressively gestured for me to hop the curb and go around her car instead of her reversing to let me by. I gestured back for her to move back a touch and let me go. This really seemed to piss her off and her gestures became more aggravated as did the row of people behind her who couldn’t move because she was blocking them and the row of people behind me that had formed who wanted to get out of the alley but couldn’t due to this horrible cow of a woman.

Finally, by the graces of her heart she moved back. Not enough that me and everyone behind me didn’t still have to jump the curb, but enough that I got caught in the snow bank beside said curb and had to spend another few minutes continuing to bock traffic maneuvering out of the snow with this woman making finger gestures at me all the while. I mouthed her a nice warm word or two as I drove away glaring at her and quickly daydreamed of her hopping out of her gas guzzling SUV and getting a boot full of snow.

Here is my issue, aside from the sheer annoyance of dealing with this particular gem of a person this particular morning. I commute everyday to work and as such I have had my fair share of people doing seriously obnoxiously things on the road. What always strikes me as curious is that without fail, the people committing these crimes on the roadoften seem to be my parents age and if you are my parents age then you may have children my age. Children who get flipped off, cut off, rudely gestured to, tailgated, or any other charming driving issue I have seen. How would you feel about the jerk who gave your 20 something year old daughter the finger at the onset of her 1 hour commute to work? How would you feel as a father about the man in his yellow porche on the 401 tailing your poor daughter as she unwillingly speeds, not in the fast lane, and risks her safety to just get away from you?

I think you would want to punch these people in the face and yet it doesn’t seem to stop anyone from doing it.

(I will also say conversely, as a younger driver, how do you feel when people on the road terrorize your parents or grandparents? Does this stop you?)

Point:

People, we need to do better. A lot better. Being a total ass on the road and antagonizing those around you never leads to good. I spent my whole hour cursing out this neighbor and in turn probably wasn’t as courteous to others as I usually am. Bad breeds bad as good breeds good.

Next time my fine neighbor- you had better show some common decency and move out of my way or I will use my rehersed line on you (it is a mean one, mr grinch) and feel no remorse. I am small but I am vicious.