Brandishing Middle Fingers

Hey blog. I'm reminded of some of my old journals where the entries start out with "Dear Journal, sorry I haven't written in so long."

The other day a man asked me, "So tell me a story." I had nothing. I mean nothing. It's like my brain flat-lined. All I could think of was how much I loved to tell stories. How this was probably the best question anyone could ask me. But nope--I had nothing.

So I'm on a quest to reclaim my inner storyteller-ness. I think a big road block on this quest is being happy. I am madly in love with my boyfriend right now. We live together in this tiny apartment and absolutely adore being with each other. Each week when we have to go back to work we send each other mopey texts. It's disgusting. Seriously, the stories I think of on a daily basis have the plot of -I missed Shaughn today and then I got to see him and it was really nice-. So, you know, I have that working against me.

But I'm going to start out small. Here's what happened to me a couple months ago.

I was on my way to work. I work across town and take Aurora/Hwy 99 for a bit. It's a little tricky getting on this road. You have to sort of gun it and merge and blinker and wave thanks a lot. But I have it down. So one day, I nicely merge, giving the car behind me sufficient time to see my blinker, either speed up and be a jerk, maintain pace, or slow down and let me in. They maintain pace so I merged. And BEEEEEEEEEEEPPP!!! They beeped their car horn so long I thought it was broken. I thought they surely weren't even honking at me. I hadn't done anything wrong. There was a tiny pause and then another long beep. Like maybe they stopped for a minute only to realize they were still mad. Well, this pissed me off a little. I'm a nice driver, I almost always let people in, I am very helpful in educating them when they are dangerous, I mean, I am practically the very picture of the Golden Rule Driving.

So I flipped them the bird in my rearview mirror. Before this moment I had only gotten a brief look at the driver and had mostly just noticed the car. White, mid-sized, 10 yrs old. But as I was flipping them the bird I realize the person in the car is an old women. A nice looking old women with round white hair (the old lady fro). An old lady I could easily imagine having gone to my church growing up. Well my stomach just sank. I realize I live in the city now, and have adopted all sorts of crazy city ways: I drink espresso and have stopped thinking of gas stations as a place to get coffee, I can go a whole day without stepping on a blade of grass, and some weeks I go to the grocery store every day. But one thing I have never done, is flip off an old person. Call me old-fashioned but it just goes against my upbringing. I imagined what my grandparents would say. Oh the disappointment! I'm already on thin ice for living in sin. And then to flip off my elder? How was I not a burnt spot on the road? All that was left from the lightning striking me, with middle finger brandishing in fury.

Well, what I'm getting at, is I felt terrible. Just awful. I merged over to another lane just to get away from the shame only to have the old lady zoom up next to me and start honking her horn again! I took it for awhile looking shamefaced. But she did not let up. I mean come on! Something inside me goes berserk with loud noises--my nerves are shock from being around kids all the time. Well, so I looked at her and yelled, "come on!" and she kept honking. So I sort of, kind of, not entirely....flipped her off again.

She barely batted an eye. She just flipped me off right back. Only, and here's the clincher, she was wearing mittens!! All I could see was a little lump in the middle where she was trying to raise her middle digit. How cute and terrible is that? Well she honked a bit more and zoomed away.

I couldn't even describe what I felt. I mean it's kind of funny, but I still felt bad. I talked to Amanda and she said the lady sounded like a b****. And she reminded me that mean women grow up to be mean old ladies. And she gave an example of a girl we know (don't worry it's not you) and I felt much better about the whole thing.


And that's the end of the story. I would try to be more graceful with my ending but Shaughn just got home from work and I've already spent like 6 minutes typing instead of smooching him, so you know, gotta go.

Comments

  1. So great to read your stories again. I love to read your stuff.
    Love p-

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