Don't you hate it when you're in a hurry? Don't you extra hate it when you're in a hurry and some asspole in front of you is going all slow? Don't extra double hate it when that slow-ass person is somehow managing to sidle back and forth in front of you at a rate just quick enough to keep you from being able to pass on either side? Like, this isn't a fucking slalom, Weavy Jefferson.
I hate those people, and I got stuck behind a whole shitload of them all the way to work today! First I get stuck behind some colonhead in a Jetta who's going 30mph, despite the fact that the speed limit is 40 (as if anyone really gives a shit about speed "limits" anyway), and everyone else on the road is going 50. So I cut around her and end up behind a Ford Focus going 25. Then the first chick passes me, which is just insulting.
I repeat this process about six times until I finally get to a wide open stretch of road and gun it...only to catch up immediately with a little red sports car, whose driver is evidently completely uninsured, which is the only excuse I can come up with for going 20mph down an empty hill with no traffic ahead of you. Of course, just as I start getting ready to roar around this fucker all Days of Thunder-style, the rest of the commuters who managed to make it past Joan Jetta and Gerald Ford Focus catch up to us and zip past me in the left lane.
So I finally make it to the light, and Little Red Riding Slow goes through it, which overjoys me, as I have to turn right. Only that's when They show up. Yeah, you know I mean. Them. The pedestrians. And not just any pedestrians, either. I mean Those pedestrians.
You know...the ones who are determined to cross the street as slow as possible in order to teach drivers a lesson about who has the Right Of Way. The ones who always turn and look at you as they saunter in front of your automobile and give you that look that just drips with, "Yeah, I'm walking here...what the fuck are you gonna do about it, Volkswagen Boy!" One of these days I'm just going to put the pedal to the metal and break 'em like a rack of billiard balls.
I mean, it's not like I was screaming obscenities at them the whole time I was approaching the light, and it isn't like I just leaned on the horn the second their toes touched the asphalt. I just pulled into the intersection and went to turn, and they busted out into the street, right in front of me, and gave me The Look. Take your Right Of Way and choke on it, walkers! When I'm a fucking pedestrian (and I am, from time to time), I make like The Flash across those intersections. It's just common courtesy. Well, I guess it's not that common after all, evidently.
So after I finally make it through that intersection, and to the next one where I end up missing the light because...because I don't know -- the cockwad in front of me just didn't go, like the formula "Green Means Go" is really complicated or something. And after I make it through that one, I get caught behind some loser in one of those fucking electric cars who can't seem to remember which turn-off he was supposed to take, so he's just going to go 5mph with his turn signal on and creep past every side street, waiting for inspiration to strike. Hey Electric Slide? That wasn't inspiration that just tapped your rear bumper, but feel free to turn off anyway!
Eventually, I make it to the parking lot here at work, but I have to wait to actually turn into it. Why? Because another pedestrian decides to shuffle across the entrance to the lot just as I arrive. And when I say 'shuffle', I mean he was walking like his shoelaces were tied together, and he was being forced to drag a combine behind him. As soon as Old Man Baby Steps finally made it to the other side of the driveway, I peeled in and parked.
Then, when I tried to stop in the bathroom to wash wet dog off my hands (the janitor has this cute little puppy whom I pet every morning, but today he was a little damp), this dude comes out at the exact same time and heads right for me. So we both stop and do that thing -- you know, the one where you simultaneously move to the same side to try and get past each other, and then back to the other side, and then you laugh about the 1930's screwball comedy-ness of it all till you finally decide through eye contact and hand gestures that one of you will go left and one will go right -- only I wasn't having it, so the second we both stepped to my right, I froze on the spot. I figured I'd stop, he'd move to the left, and we'd both get by. Right? WRONG.
See, after I stopped, he moved to the left. And stopped. For no reason. Then he moved back to the right and found me still standing there, and moved back to the left. And then? Then? He moved BACK TO THE RIGHT!!! WHERE I WAS STILL STANDING!!! He repeated this three times! Like, I'M NOT EVEN MOVING, DUDE! How hard can it be?
Anyway, I give up. The world is just stupid and there's nothing I can do about it. I left home ten minutes early today, and I still got to work late. Everybody just sucks.
Except you guys. You guys are lovely.