It's been 26 years since I took a driver's exam but I assume they still give a written test from the Driver's Handbook. I say "assume," because I encounter scads of drivers who seemingly have never read the thing.
This morning I met a driver with yield issues so bad that I'm willing to bet s/he even spells it "yeild."
Today I drove down a nice, tree-lined, four-lane divided parkway toward a parking lot. As I pulled into the crossover I saw a fast-moving SUV approaching from the other direction. I stopped to wait for the driver to make a right turn into the lot.
The driver pulled to within five feet of the lot entrance and stopped. In the middle of the road. To wave me across.
Never mind that s/he had the right of way. Or that s/he was in danger of being creamed from behind by approaching traffic (of which thankfully there was none). Or that s/he had violated one of my biggest peeves.
I hate with that happens. Why do people do that? I hate standing on a curb waiting to cross the road at the mall or grocery store because if there is a vehicle approaching, nine times out of ten it will stop and try to wave me across. This is Alabama, people, where vehicle worship is second only to football, and where most urban areas are designed for you and your precious, depreciating at a sickening rate, asset. Keep it moving, and get it out of the way. Courtesy be damned. Because I will not cross. Not until after you are gone. And to show you how passive-aggressively serious I am about this, I will not make eye contact with you. I will look the opposite way for approaching traffic, or at the wads of gum embedded in the sidewalk, or at jet contrails, but I will not be your accomplice as you flaunt the law. I will exercise my rights as a pedestrian to remain immobile until you have lawfully cleared the area. Audemus jura nostra defendere.
So I treated this morning's driver the same way. No eye contact. The more s/he waved, the more I stared at the intersection behind him/her. S/he finally gave up, mercifully before s/he was rear-ended, thus making me later for an appointment, by subjecting me to witnessing an accident, than I already was.
People, read the handbook (pdf warning). In the immortal words of Brad Hamilton, "Learn it. Know it. Live it."
And please, stop waving at me.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Read the @&(# Handbook
Labels:
Cinema,
Grumpy Old Me
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1 comment:
Dude, I am so proud of you for calling Brad Hamilton.
I see the Gospel in this post, my friend. Or at least my all too often response to it. Jesus is a very reckless driver in my daily world, and very often I want to show him how he, but sacrificing for me to make my life better, is not following my handbook, and sometimes it looks as if he may not be following his own either.
Then, instead of just accepting his act of sacrificial grace, I try and avoid it. In the end, my stubbornness has only cost me time and progress in my life. Then I will continue to bitch about how he got in my way. But isn't that the Gospel - the Cross gets in my way.
For one who claims to dislike Pharisees, I sure do wear the robe well. Like Bono wrote - "They say that what you mock, will surely overtake you." So I still want peace on earth, but am so unwilling to surrender to a Gospel that very often defies my rules. What a bonehead.
The Gospel continually invades my privacy and my life and I am astonishingly unwilling to embrace it. I find myself all too often on the other spectrum of Brad Hamilton's life. While proclaiming to people, "Learn it, know it, live it," I find God bursting into my life and responding, "Doesn't anybody @&%$ing knock anymore?"
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