TASK #33:Â DANGER BEHIND THE WHEEL
“Americans will put with anything provided it doesn’t block traffic.” Dan Rather
Well, I don’t think I have to tell you how stressful life has become, especially in this election cycle. And I’m not going to sit her and rag on Trump, although I’d like too, because he may be the catalyst for our national chasm, but we are the purveyors.
Almost every adult I know is pissed at a political party, and pissed at anyone who belongs to it.
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Bad traffic is as much a part of American life as bad reality television.
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At work our boss flat-out told us, “No talking about Trump at work…” Why? Because two guys got into it in the kitchen over a particularly sassy tweet by the president. Now that in itself didn’t provoke our boss to ban political talk–it was the the fact that it was bagel Thursday and one of the two guys–the Republican I might add–started flinging bagels and schmear at the Democrat, who retaliated, and after about 5 minutes of that, there was no more bagel Thursday, which almost brought my boss to tears, as he is a raisin bagel (toasted with butter) guy and had been looking forward to it since he woke up that morning.
It’s not only infected our office, but the streets on which I travel.
Bad traffic is as much a part of American life as bad reality television. It doesn’t matter if you live in Cleveland, Ohio, or Cleveland, Mississippi, you have to deal with the harsh reality of a car in your face and a car on your ass. And in my opinion it’s worse in the suburbs than the city, because most suburbs were designed to be less densely populated than the cities they surround, and the transportation infrastructure was constructed accordingly. Unfortunately, suburbs have become densely populated, but the roads haven’t been updated. The open road is a myth…
That’s when I get mad. My blood boils. I’m not letting anyone cut in front of me, no matter what. I creep within an inch of the car’s bumper in front of me, but the dude in a Dodge Omni (pussy) is determined to scoot up and edge in. He pushes the front of his car toward the crack between me and the car in front in front of me–I don’t give. I look over. He’s cursing at me. I don’t care.
And I don’t back off. The Omni gets within a hair of my car. He beeps at me. I ignore him. He finally backs off and he slips in behind me–which makes things even more uncomfortable for me because I can feel him staring at the back of my neck. And he tailgates me, so I stomped on the brakes, which made him screech to a halt–I could hear him screaming through my rolled-up windows and over the ACDC song I was playing.
I just laughed.
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That night I realized that I needed to find a way to relax behind the wheel. I didn’t want to end up as a story on the eleven o’clock news. So I got up the next morning and wrote a little note to myself and stuck it to my steering wheel and drove to work… What does my note say? It says RELAX.
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And this goes on like this for about fifteen minutes. When the other guy finally gets to where he’s going, he jets around me and gives me the finger and disappears. And I’m ready to follow him and beat the crap out of him.
But thank God I didn’t.
That night I realized that I needed to find a way to relax behind the wheel. I didn’t want to end up as a story on the eleven o’clock news.
So I got up the next morning and wrote a little note to myself and stuck it to my steering wheel and drove to work. I tried to be polite and friendly.
I wasn’t perfect–I saw a woman texting as she was driving and honked my horn–but I was better…
TASK
Get in your car. Drive around. Be completely and utterly courteous, kind and patient. Stay at or under the speed limit. Wave at strangers. Let someone cross the street in front of you. Don’t race through a yellow light. And for God’s sake, let someone cut in front of you. They’ll nod or wave to you. The first time I tried this task I lasted 15 minutes before I lot my shit. The second time I made it almost a half hour.
Figure out how to relax. Breathe. Pay attention to the radio. Put a note on the dashboard that says “chill”, or something like that.
Repeat every day for a week. And the week after that. And one day you’ll make it to work without a flip-out. It’ll feel good, trust me.
What does my note say? It says RELAX.
Photos by Florian Wehde on Unsplash and Joe Doe
