CAN I JUST SAY??

Can I just say that people are driving !Crazazy! today??!!

So I HAD to have some coffee this morning. I usually don't have that NEED, but today, I did. And I had won a Starbuck's gift card yesterday at work. Perfect! So I headed out and go to an intersection by my work that is notoriously crazy. I had my eye on a semi that was going to turn left. I was going to go straight, but I was watching him right beside me in the left turn lane because 9 of his 18 wheels were in my "straight only" lane. So I'm really eyballing him. Traffic in front of me seems to be moving. I clear his wheels and proceed forward. I gunned it in order to make SURE I cleared his wheels. Well, by the time I actually LOOKED forward, I saw that I was running a full-on RED LIGHT! I am so lucky that I didn't get schmucked (or pulled over)!

I was trying to calm down from that incident so I was glad that right after that light is a school zone where the speed limit is 20 mph during school hours. Trust me, when it's before or after school hours, I barrel through the school zones. But I'm very concientious about going 20 between the hours of 7 & 5. So I'm breathing in. Breathing out. Breathing in. Breathing out. Getting my barings. Calming down. I look in my rear-view mirror (because I want to prove to myself that I am a safe driver) and what do I see?? No, not a cop, thank goodness. The driver behind me is flapping her arms like she's suffering a seizure. She's yelling at me, glowering, riding my tail. So I smile and point to the SCHOOL DIRECTLY TO OUR RIGHT! The gestures don't stop. She doesn't get it. So she keeps convulsing and contorting and I continued to point and say (outloud, mind you, because you know - other drivers can HEAR you when you're both in your own, closed, moving cars): "It's a SCHOO-OOOOOL ZOOOOOO-OOOOONE." Well, by then, the blessed "35 mph" sign had appeared and I just gunned it. I mean, really gunned it. I think I was up to 50 mph in about 0.2 seconds. I showed her! (aside: I realize I didn't really show her anything and that I still chose to break the law - just not in the school zone - and that I was not being a safe driver when I ran the red or when I gunned it after the school zone!)

Ok. So I collected myself, got to Safeway, and ordered my coffee. I got back to the office without incident, thank God!

I went home for my lunch hour and almost got hit while I was going 40 on a main road (this time, I was following the speed limit!) when a car pulls out right in front of me!!!! I laid on the horn, not so much out of being annoyed, although I clearly was annoyed, but more because I wanted her to see me and TRY not to hit me at that point. She did hear my horn and she quickly high-tailed it into the bike lane. Thankfully, there wasn't a biker there!! So that was a near miss.

At that point, I was literally 2 blocks away from my house. I thought, "Ok, smooth sailing. Nothing more to contend with. The stress is over." Well, the Lord must have thought I needed to REALLY slow down because as I went to turn left into my block, I spotted a neighbor of mine at the intersection. This neighbor is confined to a wheel chair but gets around pretty frequently with the help of her motorized chair and her trusty black lab, Alkaline. Being the safe, courteous driver (& neighbor) that I was, I thought, I'll wait for her to cross the street. It would not be good for me to rip out in front of her just so I can literally go a 1/2 block. That's not good for neighbor relations; nor is it good for karma! (not that I believe in that). Anyway, so I let her and her dog cross onto our street. Well, she didn't know I was there. And she took up the whole width of the road with her chair and her dog. Ok, right about now you're probably thinking I'm heartless and how dare I care to hurry the handicapped? Don't worry - I didn't hurry her. And after all, I only considered LIGHTLY honking. After what seemed like an eternity, she maneuvered her chair off the road toward her aparmtent & I was able to get on with my day. Very carefully, slowly, and courteously.