Road Rage? Isn't that just a Menopausal Mom in a car?

The woman who was shaving her armpits while steering with her knees....no road rage. The time the driver was eating pancakes from a plate with a fork while driving her mini-van..... no road rage. The guy who was driving his moped at 15 mph on a two lane road where there was no chance to pass for 10 miles...no road rage.

But cut me off, tailgate me too closely, speed around me recklessly and, God help you, honk or shake a fist at me.....the Road Rage Beast is unleashed.

I have screamed at only a handful people in my life. Strangely, most of those I've loved deeply .....or maybe that makes sense.

Anyway, when I say I have screamed at a small number people I mean a small number of people know I've screamed at them. If you add to the list people I have shared my vocal concerns about their driving ability well.......that number might be infinite.

Oh, sure, everybody comes out with the occassional "Dude! Where's your blinker!!!" (Whether "Dude" is appropriately used by a chubby Menopausal Moms on any occasion is a post for another day.)

I'm not proud to say that for me would be a tame response on an excellent day. I don't tend to yell profanity, ok that's not true. Even when I avoid foul language I can be descriptive and insistent.
I have, I hate to admit, resorted to a universally understood hand gesture involving a single finger.

Of course, I'm a grown up responsible for my choice. But I will cite the influences of my sisters, Teresa Grider and Gwen Meehan, for showing me the ways of Road Rage early and often. (Mom! They did it first!) I rode with my older sisters a lot before I got my license and they both had a lot to say about other drivers.
(Gwen put her foot on the dash and chugged Dr. Pepper. In an effort to be as cool as her, I did mirror putting my foot on the dash. Oh the flexible days of flirting constantly with life-altering orthopedic injury.)

I actually took a family poll and found Road Rage could be a genetic trait. Both Gwen and Teresa admit to their road rage past and that they have passed this trait onto their children. Even my brother Pat, who is a professional Santa Claus, admits to road rage tendencies. Think for a moment what it musts be liked to be called out in  traffic by Santa.

He went on to point out, in all CAPS in road-rage-like passion that "STUPID GOES ALL THE WAY TO THE BONE."

My sister Kathy suggested helpfully that we all have a responsibility when it comes to bad drivers to help them see the error of their ways.

 So, really, I come from a family intent on public service.

Anyway, I hope All State will still hold me in their good hands if they read this but once in the not too distance past I riled up a fellow driver by hitting my brake lights in an attempt to get her to back the fairway off of my bumper on a twisty two lane road. When finally got to the big city and a wider road she expressed her displeasure in a an impressive array of hand gestures and a long rant about whether I shared certain characteristics with a female canine. In the midst of her heartfelt sharing she complained that my earlier attempt to communicate without words had corrupted the tender sensibilities of her grandson who was in the back seat of the car as she screamed at me.

Oh, is this burying the lead?

When the light changed, she literally swerved into my lane and tried to hit me with her car.

I tried, without success, to report this to the police. Pulling into a gas station I told an officer, and I hate to say it, who was eating a doughnut, about what I thought might be legally attempted vehicular manslaughter. He dutifully took notes but I'm pretty sure did nothing. I left out the part about my single finger hand gesture.

There was another incident not too long after involving a woman who honked at me in downtown traffic then whipped aound my car so within a minute we were sitting at the same traffic light in a slightly different order. She almost hit my car. She shook her finger in my general direction. The Road Rage Beast was unleashed.

It turns out that we were heading in the same direction for about four miles. This seemed to upset her if the screamy face she exhibiting in her rearview mirror was any indication. It's possible I didn't need to turn down the exact side road where she sought to turn but by then she was so agitated that when we both set our blinkers she jumped out of her mini-van in the dark in the middle of a pretty crowded road to holler at me to stop following her.

I, honestly, did not respond to her because at that point because she seemed crazy. I did make what was certainly a poor choice and made the turn anyway. It's wrong, I know, but I felt a little vengence in her discomfort. (Cut me off again, will you?)

So, as my daughter starts to learn to drive, I'm wondering if I should change my ways. So I ask the question.......

Is this ever OK?