Road Rage

So, I almost got in a fight on the highway today on my way home from work.

They are doing construction on I-70 near Vail this summer and it routinely causes big traffic jams on the highway. The few times I have been stuck in this traffic, I have noticed a bunch of people who think they can do whatever they want and decide to drive in the shoulder past all of the stopped traffic. It made me so mad that today I decided to wait in the right lane and watch for people doing this and pull into the shoulder myself to block them off, flip them off, and let them know that they are jerks.

So I did it. My first customer actually pulled onto the shoulder from right behind me. They were in the left lane and then pulled into the right lane right behind me and then right into the shoulder from there. When I saw what they were doing, I quickly pulled into the shoulder, honked my horn at them, and flipped them off. Well, they decided to stop and make more of it, acting like they wanted to fight with me. When I first decided upon this course of action, I didn't think it would result in any physical altercations. I thought I would simply flip them off and let them go on their merry way with them hopefully feeling at least a little bit guilty for their selfishness, and with me feeling at least a little bit vindicated. So when this guy stopped and wanted to make a bigger issue out of it, I didn't know what to do. So I rolled up my windows and locked my doors and motioned in an annoyed manner for him to keep going, but I also kept flipping him off too just for good measure. Luckily he decided to leave without incident.

Unphased, I kept watching for these hated shoulder passers. I saw a few coming, but I wasn't able to pull in front of them in time, so I had to be satisfied with merely flipping them off from the lane I was in as they passed unhindered on the shoulder. Then I saw another car coming and pulled in front of them and flipped them off through my sunroof. They got mad and made a two-handed "what the hell is this car doing?" sort of motion, and then they gave me a sarcastic two thumbs up and exaggerated smile gesture as if saying sarcastically, "Good job! You are a really great vigilante! Keep it up!". After a few seconds of flipping them off some more and giving them a "you should wait in traffic just like everyone else" motion, I let them pass while they continued to give me the sarcastic two thumbs up and I continued to flip them off. I wanted to say back to them, "yes, I AM good at this, and yes I WILL keep it up, you jerks!"

Yeah, it was pretty immature (REALLY immature), and probably not very smart of me (some might call it plain dumb), and it probably just made me even more mad than if I had done nothing (I was fuming), but I don't really regret doing it either. The people in the cars around me might have thought I was just as much of an ass as the people passing in the shoulder, but I like to think that maybe I was also their hero for doing what they wish they had done. It probably had no real effect on the people who I flipped off either, other than just make them angry, but I also like to think that maybe I made them feel at least a smidgen of guilt too. So, I probably won't do it again in the future, but I think I'm glad I did it anyway.

PS: Don't worry. I pretty much always contain my emotions quite well when I am driving, especially when I'm driving the bus. Even though there are so many thing to get mad about when driving the bus, I am really good about maintaining my composure and not letting those things upset me.

Deleted

I almost wrote another blog entry today, but it sucked, so I deleted it and wrote this one instead.

Anyway, today's video is "Break" by The Cinematics. I had never heard of them before yesterday when I randomly and on a whim downloaded their album from iTunes just because it was on the discounted "Up & Coming" list and the one or two songs I listened to sounded decent. So I bought the whole album and I actually really like it! Go figure. I don't really like this video that much though. Fluorescent bulbs as decorations in music videos is so overrated.

A date with Judi Dench

This morning I had a dream that I was on a date with Judi Dench. At the beginning of the date I was madly in love with her, but by the end I was rather put-off by how rude she was and how she was constantly stuffing her face with sweets and cakes and pastries and very small, very expensive cappuccinos. She was wearing this strange, sparkly white dress but she kept spilling cake and pudding on it. Who knew Judi Dench was such a slob? At least I was looking really spiffy in my white T-shirt. It was probably the worst date I've ever been on.

Later on, I was spraying all the plants in town with a Coca-Cola/Water mixture to attract snakes to town to scare away all of the bunnies. Apparently the bunnies were really wreaking havoc and everyone thought snakes would be better. Or wait, maybe we were trying to attract bunnies to get rid of the snakes; I don't remember. I squirted one guy in the eye with the potent mixture after he made fun of my green shirt, but really I had only squirted myself in the eye since I was experiencing a bout of multiple personalities and that guy was just my alter ego. It turned out that my alter ego and I were fighting over some woman who wasn't interested in either of us, but I was pretty sure that she was slightly less uninterested in ME than in the other alter ego me who I had squirted in the eye with coca cola.

This woman had a flock of dogs following her everywhere she went. Each of the dogs was like a representation of one of her former boyfriends. There were some really mean, nasty, mangy looking dogs, and a few nicer looking dogs. My dog representative was a Weimaraner. My alter ego's dog was a Pomeranian.

Here's a video of a Pomeranian wrestling with a bigger dog: