I
don't usually give in to road rage. I mean, I scream a lot in my
car, explaining to oblivious drivers what idiots they are, but I've
never gotten myself into a confrontation before. It was close
yesterday. Good thing OYT and his sweet, quirky personality was
along.
To
begin with, I wasn't happy about the errand, and it was getting close
to rush hour (yes, our small town has one, on this particular street
we were traveling.) Traffic is S L O W. I have no idea why it's all
plugged up, but as I get cut off by someone who thinks it's really
important to be one more car further along, OYT says,
“How
about a fun factoid to distract you?”
“Um,
OK Sheldon, go ahead.”
“Did
you know that womens' tear ducts are shaped differently than mens',
so that their tears will roll prettily down their cheeks while a
man's tear will roll discreetly down the side of their nose?”
“Why
no, I didn't know that. That's a good one. WHERE did you learn
that?”
Unlike
most fun facts he shares, I'm not thinking this one was from
Mythbusters...
“It's
(name of YouTube channel – I can't keep up, the subscribe to so
many.)”
“Cool.
Got anymore?”
“Yes,
but I'll save for the next time some idiot pisses you off.”
That
didn't take long. By now we can see that it's down to one lane (in
each direction). I move over, but many cars just keep driving.
You've seen them, they're exempt from the rules, will drive all the
way to the barricade, then barge in front of you, who planned ahead
and was already safely in the appropriate lane, and force their way
in front of you.
“If
you eat polar bear liver you'll die of vitamin A poisoning!”
That
was just in time because I've just been waiting for seven yahoos to
barge in, and some idiot is letting people turn left in front of him,
and they're almost getting hit by the CONTINUOUS stream of special
folks who've seen the yahoos and decided to join them. So we now
have idiots on all sides.
I
start to seethe, and scream, and glare. OYT starts singing “Soft
Kitty.” It's from Big Bang Theory. Sheldon' s mom used to sing it
to him when he was sick, and he makes his friends sing it to him even
though he's an “adult”.
♫Soft
kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur. Happy kitty, sleepy kitty,
purr, purr, purrrrrr.♫
I
melt. And relax. We continue on in traffic. I've had to take some
alternate routes because the traffic signal was out at one of THE
major intersections and they decided oh so brilliantly to get their
cherry-picker trucks and block off two lanes of each major road,
direct traffic around the trucks, and fix the lights DURING RUSH
HOUR. I understand the directing traffic, absolutely necessary, but
wait until you've gotten all those people out of there first, then
bring in your equipment. Instead, you've snarled half of town.
We're
almost to our destination when we're stopped by a train. A long
train. A little hand sneaks over to my shoulder and a soft voice
starts singing again.
~Tina
~Tina
P.S SMK (handy nick-name tab above) who reads all my posts, immediately had the answer to the Squirrelmageddon dilemma.
"Of course there are squirrels everywhere. We had a flood. They're looking for their families, a new home, they're running all over the place! Mystery solved.
