2 Fast 2 Furious

I want to make it known that I'm clearly not immune to terribleness. I'm as guilty of idiocy as the rest of the mouth breathing, Cap'n Crunch Oops! All Berries eating retail nightmares that exist out there. I may not eat SpongeBob Mac & Cheese with my fingers like I'm guessing the majority of these verbally incontinent malcontents do, but I do run on work related autopilot enough to where I find myself figuratively taking a commuter plane choke and pinning it to the ceiling, ultimately ruining the day of the innocent bystanders that got in the way of me and my emotional constipation.

The most recent metaphorical crash occurred when I pulled out of our pizzeria's parking lot with a delivery and turned out onto Main Street. Main Street is the aptly named slab of pavement that carries the majority of commuting traffic in Ramona. It's a pretty well traveled road with the exception of Sundays; the day in which 40% of the population gathers to worship some form of deity that gets super pissed about dipping your wick before your wedding day or eating popcorn shrimp and bacon. According to the site TV by the Numbers, the other 64% of the population is watching football, which means apparently the NFL caters to heathens. It also means that at least 4% of the community is lying about what they're actually doing on their Sundays, because the roadways are certainly depleted, but they're definitely not missing 104% of the population.
 
That's why I was surprised to see an astounding amount of traffic pouring through Main Street on this particular Sunday. I didn't think too long and hard about the number of vehicles hauling ass in my direction, though. I simply did what every Californian is forced to do if they want to successfully make it from point A to point B in the greater San Diego area. I turned out real slow in front of dozens of fast moving vehicles in an effort to get where I was going with the quickness.

To be fair, there are two lanes going each way on Main Street, so the cars that I managed to cut off could simply go around me. They did just that, too. Several cars bypassed me without even sparing me the seething glance that I justifiably deserved. That's when one non-distinct car decided to pull up next to me, lay on their horn and wave out the passenger window for the better part of half a mile. In response to the hostility, I did the only thing that any narcissistic monster that's too much of a pussy to initiate confrontation could do. I dangerously weaved through traffic at around 15 miles per hour over the speed limit in an effort to alienate everyone in town from the business I was advertising with my car topper. That's when I noticed a break in the traffic. I thought it was odd that the sea of cars all of a sudden seemed to part before me. Eventually there was only one car ahead of me. It was a hearse. Turns out I had entered a funeral procession and the car that was making a scene was part of the caravan that was following the casket. Apparently they were trying to enlighten me about how I was cutting off a series of grieving family members. Or more specifically, they were trying to non-verbally tell me to fuck off through a series of hostile gestures and unfortunately appropriate honking. 

Now, in my defense, there's generally a cop or two that leads a procession. I was either too far back in the pack to have seen the officer or I was too worried about what scathing article I was going to write about in my next weeks edition of Why You're Terrible. Either way, my obliviousness and inability to see anyone else on the road as having the right-of-way is a microcosm of what's wrong with our collective social interactions in general. We see ourselves as the only active participants in life and everyone else as pieces that are preordained to move in a specific fashion around us; a fashion that we generally perceive (appropriately most of the time) as getting in our way or causing us grief. A little realization that everyone else is acting of their own, most of the time genial accord, would undoubtedly move us in a utopic direction and away from the cliff of cultural nihilism that we seem to be precariously balancing on. I'm of the opinion that this line of positive thinking would allow for an overall awareness to creep in and guide us in a productive path that isn't quite so selfishly oriented. There would be a slow but surefire understanding that others aren't simply out to get us, but that we're all here to guide one another in a direction that's best for all parties. In other words, the hostile car wasn't out to humiliate me because I was simply wearing a car topper and entering their driving space, they were trying to direct my attention to their dead homey that was taking the ultimate siesta in the glorified station wagon that was cruising through town a block-and-a-half up the road. Don't get me wrong, most of the time people are simply being chodes. Nine out of ten times the lifted truck that's honking at you with their self-installed freight liner horn that sounds like it was stolen from the harbor and bred with a vuvuzela, simply wants to express to you the true length and girth of their manhood, they're generally not trying to be polite and inform you about how you accidentally left your gas cap ajar. Just be aware that the rare 10% of the time that someone is flagging you down, they really are just looking out for your best interest, which just so happens to coincide with there's. So please, don't discount everyone, and occasionally try and return the courteously driven favor that was passed your way, the world will undoubtedly be a better place for it.