You know what drives me bonkers? You don't? Okay, I'll tell you. What drives me bonkers is when you are merging onto a road and the car behind you, rather than wait their turn and merge in BEHIND you, guns it, and shoots out and goes around you, forcing you to hit your brakes and wait for them to completely clear you, so you can then merge in behind them. Oh, that ticks me off.
It's like, are they in such a hurry that one car length is really going to make or break them? Mind you, I am not a slow driver. (If my sister or husband are reading this, I know their thought bubble reads 'yeah, you think?') So, why the need to cut around me? Can't they just fall in behind? You know those drivers were the same kids in 2nd grade who constantly cut in line without so much as giving it a backwards glance. You know the ones. I am going to venture that no one called them out in 2nd grade, thus, the cutting continues. Oh, the audacity !
And since you brought it up (hehe), it chaps my hide when people know something and refuse to act accordingly. On my way home from picking Kaiti up from school, there is a road I have to turn left on, to enter the highway. There are 2 left-turn lanes. Once you turn, the right lane has to IMMEDIATELY merge with the left lane. IMMEDIATELY. So there is really no sense in the right lane's existence.
People who travel this route know this. They know it well. And the majority of people only line up in the left lane. These people are like me. The knowers, the ones that follow the unspoken rule. But then there are the people who get in the right lane, KNOWING it has to merge immediately. And trust me, they know. I can see it in the narrowing of their eyes before the light turns green, in the way they ferociously grip the steering wheel, prepared to battle it out around the turn. I know they know.
And if their pre-green light behavior was not enough to give them away, the way they burn rubber and put the full weight of their body on their gas pedal once the light turns green says it all. And let me tell you, there are plenty of times I have seen near accidents because the merge of the two lanes into one, around a curve, no less, is so sudden, so quick, that it causes people to slam on brakes or hug the edge of the road to avoid a collision. Again, pretty poor road planing, if you ask me.
On several occasions, my somewhat-deviated sense of enforcing right and wrong has almost caused me to get in the right lane so I could creep around the turn at 2 mph once the light turns green, to teach all the people behind me a little lesson about proper lane merging. I've never actually done it,but I kinda enjoy thinking about when I am at that red light. Oops. Maybe I shouldn't have shared that part.
Okay, so the purpose of this was not to illustrate my crazy. I know, too late.
The thing is, I tend to place people into 3 groups. Group One: the stringent rule followers, ardently falling in accordingly. Group Two: the placid rule knowers, but could care less-ers, very blase about Group One's passion, or Group Three's disregard. And Group Three: The rule-disregarders- the people who are well aware but could care less and only apply rules as they see fit.
I know, this is pretty weighty for a simple merging of lanes. That's me. I take the simple and make it complex. I take a teenie piece of behavior and apply it to the grand scale of human existence.
Well, not really. At least not all the time. This little diatribe is one part thought, one part humor, and one part me having too much time to think on my drive home.
In case you didn't guess already, I tend to fall in Group One. The annoying group that thinks if we all just fell in and did right, life would be easier, simpler, and free of chaos.
And today I found out, I passed that Group One gene onto my eldest son. It was very eye-opening.
I went to have lunch with my kindergartner today at school, and I was having such a great time with him. Even though I had Jack with me, it was nice to be with Tyler, amongst his friends and hear the conversations. I've done this before, and I always walk away with a smile, a little more knowledgeable about the type of person my son is. (I know my son, but when children are around people in different environments, they can be slightly different than the person they are at home.)
So today, after some meaningful discussions about 'smell' of meatloaf, a lecture about what constitutes a quiet voice (it was me receiving the lecture), and a brainstorming of possible names for #4 (one little girl suggested Ocean, and I kinda like it- don't worry- my husband will veto it before I get to the second syllable), it was time to walk back to the classroom. They call the walk 'lips and hips'. One hand on the hip-- it's pretty sassy, actually- and one finger on the lips-- reminding them to button it. Or zip it, whatever floats your boat.
As we were walking, lips-and-hip-style, this one little girl was talking to me. She was asking me to take her to the library, asking me if I had seen Ghostbusters, and if so, was I scared. She kept talking up a storm, when my son, who was directly behind her, tapped her on the shoulder. As the poor chatty girl turned around, Tyler took the finger that was on his lips and very forcefully looked at her with a seriousness that rivaled, I don't know, someone REALLY serious, and jabbed his pointer finger against his lips two times. He was telling her to shut it.
(since tyler is still at school, I let his little sister give a demo)
I didn't correct him or tell him that he should leave the supervising to the teachers, because, like I said, I am a rule follower, and I had one finger on my lips. (The other was not on my hip, as much as I would have liked it to be, because I had to push Jack's stroller.) And anyway, I kinda was thinking the same thing, and the only thing that stopped me from tapping my finger on my lips to remind her to hush it was the fact that I am not her teacher, nor her mother, nor a kindergartner who could get away with such a reminder.
The little girl rolled her eyes at my son. But she shut it. So, as an outsider looking in, I see what our Group One means to those in other Groups. Our reminders may work, but to those in different groups, they are also quite annoying.
Needless to say, I don't think this girl will want Tyler as her BFF. It's probably for the best anyways....Tyler already has one lady in his life who cannot keep her mouth shut.
Guess who?
1 comment:
That was so cute!!!
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