Lez Keep It Real

This happened to me yesterday. True story. I’m driving home on my late afternoon commute, perfectly content to be listening to the Avenue Q soundtrack with my windows rolled down and a steady breeze circling through the entire interior of my 2003 Echo, when traffic slows and becomes congested.

I don’t panic or curse because hey … it happens.

I inch along until my exit, which isn’t too far away at this point, turn on the off ramp and pull in behind another long line of cars waiting behind an incredibly slow stoplight. We are waiting to turn left onto Harlem Rd., which is overcrowded with construction workers and life-sized versions of numerous Tonka Truck vehicles.

The stoplight changes very slowly because of the obstruction and allows maybe four or five cars through at a time. This does not upset me in the least, as I have the wonderful cast of Avenue Q there with me in the car, keeping me company.

Suddenly, I hear a faint scream. I glance in my rearview and a woman, dressed in business attire and Gucci sunglasses, is steering her little sports car off to the side of the road to see if she can get around the line of cars in front of her. Of course, there’s no room and if she goes any further she’ll end up in a ditch. I’m instantly amused by her, and watch as though I’m watching a suspenseful television program where even if you have to go to the bathroom so bad it hurts, you wait for a commercial because you don’t want to miss a minute of it.

She pulls her car back onto the road and bursts wildly into a temper tantrum. Mind you, this woman is pushing forty years old at least. She pounds the steering wheel, honks her horn and lets a tapestry of obscenities fly free from her mouth so loud that I can hear them clearly from the front seat of my own car. I laugh at her impudence, amazed that a grown woman would act in such a way or let such an unforeseeable circumstance anger her to such a point that she believes honking her horn and casting evil eyes at the construction workers will somehow get her to her destination quicker.
When the cars don’t move, shocking I know, she holds up her hands in frustration. How dare the people in front of her abide by traffic laws and regulations? She has places to go, people to see!

I’m laughing uncontrollably now, and I think that she notices. My intent isn’t to mock her or be rude, I am just genuinely entertained by her antics.

The cars eventually move, as anyone with an ounce of patience would have known they would. I get closer to stoplight; about five cars remain in front of me when it turns green again. And, just as I approach it turns red. So, like any normal, sensible human being who is well-aware that red means “stop,” I hit the breaks. Well, this was apparently the last straw for Ms. Gucci Sunglasses. She lays on the horn, tells me to “eff off” and is absolutely appalled by the fact that I didn’t go through a red light so that she could hitch the front of her car to my bumper and weasel her way through as well.

My amusement shifts, and I feel as though I’m being singled out simply because I happen to be in the car in front of her. I casually stick my arm out of the window, point to the light and hold up my hand as if to say, “It’s a red light lady. What did you expect me to do?” She returns with another friendly “eff you” and a “give me a break” for good measure. Then she frantically digs her cell phone out of her purse, clamps it to her ear and begins illuminating the person on the other end with her sad story. She is the victim, and I am the evil driver in front of her keeping her from her extremely important appointment.

Right. I purposely stopped at the red light just to have a go at you, push you further off the edge than you’ve already gone. Are you serious? Do you really think that you are that important? Do you really think I’m sitting there with a Mr. Burns-like expression on my face, eagerly tapping my bony fingers together all while muttering breathlessly, that “my plan is working”? Apparently, she did.

The funny thing is that I probably saved this woman from getting into a car accident. It would have been a stretch for me to try and get through the red light, and I know it would have been close to impossible for her. But seeing as how she was in such a hurry, she would have definitely tried and would have either skinned by, caused an accident or gave someone coming from the opposite direction a serious heart attack.

I’m thinking, “You should be thanking me lady.”

The light turns green and I happily make my left turn. I watch as Ms. Gucci Sunglasses turns behind me and follows me down the road. At this point I think maybe she has mellowed a bit. We get about a half-mile before there is another stoplight, and it just so happens to turn red as we approach. Thankfully, there are two cars that stop ahead of me so I’m relieved that I won’t be blamed for stopping this time. I check my side-view to see if the woman has indeed calmed down and much to my surprise I notice her pointing directly at me. She waits till I catch her in my stare, and then she holds up the letter “C” and points at me again. “C***,” she says. “You are a C***.” (The word is so abhorred that I refuse to spell it out or give it anymore attention than I already have to.”

Now, let me interject for a moment here and say that throughout my twenty-nine years on this planet, I have never, ever been called the “C” word before. I have never done anything so horrific to incite such a word from another human being. Yet, here I am, being called the “C” word for the first time in my life simply because this woman was in a hurry. Wow. I am speechless.

I compose myself for a moment and think that I have two choices here. I can resort to her catty thirteen-year-old-girl-like antics and call her something equally as offensive (though she pretty much took the cake with that one), or I can take a deep breath and take the higher road. I know that if I sink to her level, I won’t feel any better when I get home. Instead I’ll be angry and upset without really knowing why. Furthermore, why should I let someone else’s ugliness become my own? It’s wasted energy.

So, I glance in the side-view to make sure she can see me and I merely thank her. Then I blow her a friendly kiss, say, “Bless you,” and head on my way. The look on her face told me that she had not been expecting that kind of reaction and it seemed to deflate her just enough for me to know I had done the right thing.

When I pull in my driveway, I laugh at the absurdity of the situation and am thankful for the fact that there were no young children in the car with her to see her acting in such a manner that, one day, they would probably adopt and react in the same unhealthy way to unforeseeable life circumstances that they have no control over. It is, in a word – senseless.

I realize that I could have been anyone at that moment, gay or straight, black or white. It doesn’t matter because ugly doesn’t discriminate.

Sadly, ugly can exist in anyone.

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