Sunday, March 02, 2008

The opposite of road rage

The other day, I was driving through SF's Inner Sunset neighborhood, in a hurry, on the way to the Yum Yum. A car full of very young people cut me off at that tricky four-way intersection (Irving and 9th.) I honked my horn. Down came their driver's side window. I braced myself for the nasty threats, the fists, the finger. But no. Instead, a bearded, frizzy-haired guy leaned out the window, made a "calm down, take it down a notch'' gesture to me with his right hand, and calmly mouthed out the following words:

"It's ... going .. to ... be .. OK.''

This is the first time that I've ever gotten into a road rage situation with a crisis intervention counselor. Needless to say, the encounter left no negative residue at all. I wish this kind of thing would happen more often. If this were NYC, all my teeth, at this point, would be missing.

9 comments:

Kara said...

That would piss me off WAY more than the finger. I'd be like, "Why, you patronizing...!" and then proceed -- am I giving away which coast I'm from? -- to rip out all the dude's teeth. I'm a monster. A monster.

cactuseaters said...

hi Kara. I can see how a lot of people would have that reaction but it somehow startled me out of feeling pissed off. It was so weird and off-putting that I forgot to be mad.

Anonymous said...

who cares about road rage it is so not interesting you should use our time to write about other topics

cactuseaters said...

Hi Anonymous. Good to hear from you again! Fond regards, DW.

maud said...

If someone pulled that stunt on me, I would have hocked a loogie in his smiling face. Let him scrape that off his beard.

cactuseaters said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
cactuseaters said...

Call me ultra-impressionable, but I am gradually coming around to Kara's and Maud's point of view. The people in the car now strike me as condescending shmucks.

cactuseaters said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
cactuseaters said...
This comment has been removed by the author.