The Universe Is Not Subtle

Good thing we're heading to the beach tomorrow. Yesterday the universe gave me a pretty clear sign that I need a vacation.

What happened was, I nearly clocked an idiot who was sitting in her broken-down car, blocking an intersection. I nearly clocked her after she brayed "Go around!" while flailing her arm out the driver's side window, oblivious to the fact that a car was at that moment turning onto the street we were on (from the quite busy road I was trying to get to), and that if I had gone around, I'd have found myself in a head-on collision.

I nearly clocked her for not acknowledging that her huge 1970s-era Pontiac was blocking all visibility along with most of the intersection, and that anyone attempting to go around her would have a very good chance of being squashed like a bug. I nearly clocked her after she suggested by her attitude that it was my own damn fault I needed to get through the intersection she was blocking through no fault of her own and "what the hell did I expect her to do about it?" (Her actual words.)

I nearly clocked her when she continued to curse at me after I pointed out that I had kids in my car. (There were F-bombs, people.) I did a three-point turn in the middle of the road, and THEN decided to Rise Above by getting out of my car and offering to help her move her boat off to the side of the road, thereby making the intersection safer.

And then I came very close to Absolutely Losing My Shit when my very generous offer of help was not only spurned, but it was spurned with venom and four-letter-words and vitriol and finally with the emphatic rolling up of her window so that GOD FORBID she should hear me say that sitting with her car in the middle of the intersection could be DANGEROUS.

I came very close to kicking the ever-loving shit out of her rear bumper.

Instead, I got back in my car, slammed the door, and headed back the way I came. Took a few deep breaths. Then I pulled out my cell phone and called 911 to report a dangerous situation.

I hope to heaven she mouthed off to the cops when they got there.

This morning there was an oil slick on the road where this troglodyte had been beached. I smiled as I drove on, imagining that it was blood.



(See you on the other side of five days of sun and sand. And maybe wine. And trashy novels from the library. And no baking or idiot drivers.)