Road Rage Refined

The following post is rated "R" for excessive use of unsavory language. Parents are cautioned never to use any of these language examples when they are in the car with their children.



Scott McLatchy--"A Dark Rage" (mp3)





OK, I think I've got it down to a science.



Sure, when that guy cuts in front of you, when that woman is driving way too slow in the fast lane, when some idiot speeds up and rushes toward you because he sees you're trying to make a left hand turn, you lose all rational thought and slip into blind anger. But with a little bit of planning, with some mental training and the pre-planting of a mantra, you can equip yourself with a quite rational, measured response to all of the assholes who don't follow the basic rules of road courtesy.



First of all, and, really, last of all, there's only one rule: You only need one word. I'll admit, I've been kind of a free-styler in the past, just as likely to yell, "Hey, fuckface, way to come into my lane and slow down!" as I am to "Yo, shitbreath, I'm on cruise control, what's your excuse?" or "Really, dickwad, really?" Yeah, my language could really go all over the place. And uncontrolled language can get you in trouble. I'll vouch for that. You need some refinement to get control of the situation.



Want to know my secret? It's "douche." Yep. "Douche" is the magic word. I can't quite remember how or where or when I settled on it, but I've been happy ever since.



Wikipedia reminds us that "[d]ouche usually refers to vaginal irrigation, the rinsing of the vagina," but the Urban Dictionary embellishes that definition: "a word to describe an individual who has shown themself to be very brainless in one way or another, thus comparing them to the cleansing product for vaginas."



I apologize to my sisters who see this word choice as detrimental or demeaning to women. We simply don't have a similar product.



But, at least, everyone can take pleasure in the fact when you unleash "douche" on some hapless fool, you are working the double-entendre, you are tossing out a word has layers of subtlety and meaning. Yes, there is contentment in that knowledge. He or she can't know whether you are referring to an ordinary household product or whether you are calling him or her a knucklehead.



Maybe "douche" is the new "gay"? Generalized, non-specific, insulting, but no longer reflecting its previous meaning.



I mean, if you call someone "dickbreath," depending on persuasions and proclivities, he or she might take offense. Or they may get all embarassed and wonder, 'Did I forget to brush my teeth? How can he know that?' "Asswipe," another favorite of my old self, also is likely to provoke a negative reaction. There's something coarse about it. Yelling "toilet paper" would probably be nicer. I mean, given the basic passive-aggressiveness of road rage anyway, the last thing you want is to say something that's going to amp the other person up so that you have to amp it up even more than their ampage, which they then try to ratchet even higher. And so on.



One time in Camden, Maine, at the junction of the most evil traffic creation anywhere, the Flashing Yellow/Flashing Red Intersection, I encountered a man who, while I had the flashing yellow, pulled out in front of me, which prompted a lengthy honk from me and a subsequent finger-wagging from him, which, in turn, provoked me to yell so that he could read my lips, "I'm not the one who's wrong, you're the one who's fucking wrong!" which inspired him to turn around as soon as possible and chase me, my pregnant wife, and young child all over town in hopes of kicking my ass. Not my best day. I got outraged big time. And when I finally pulled over, when the guy finally caught up with me, I began to put down my window to try to reason with someone who had reversed direction and followed me all over that quaint summer vacation town, my wife told me I was a complete idiot and to get us the hell out of there. I obliged, but she didn't have to get so angry about it.



The beauty of "douche" is that no one can even tell that you're saying it. You might as well be saying "dude" or just about anything else that doesn't require much movement from the lips. You can look at them, you can even smile at them, while saying "douche" and even if they can figure it out, they can't possibly know which definition you are using.



Of course, the other beauty of the word is its flexibility. It can, literally, fill almost any role in the litany of parts of speech:



"Get over, Douche!" (noun)

"Dude, you're really douching me." (verb)

"Buddy, that was a douche move." (adjective)

"Lady, you are driving really douchely." (adverb)



And since road rage is all about feeling superior--



I'm a better driver than you, I never would have done that, I can't believe you thought that was a good idea, Don't you look to see what's going on around you, Who taught you to drive, You drive like a woman/man/child/alien/ethnic slur



--nothing makes you feel superior like getting control of language in the language control game. Someone cut in front of you and you honk and they give you their middle finger? You are simply amused. You are embarassed for his lack of finesse. Because you have spoken a word which simultaneously put him in their place without his even knowing it, passed judgement on him in a way that gave him no way to respond, gained the upper hand with your windows rolled up and your air-conditioning going, while the air still echoes your self-satisfied pronouncements on anyone who doesn't play the driving game the way you want it played and maybe doesn't even know it. Isn't that what it's all about? Hooray.



Except that what I'm proposing here is 1st degree, pre-meditated road rage, isn't it? What a douche.

Anatomy of a Road Trip

Grateful Dead--"On The Road Again (live)" (mp3)

PURPOSE: to drive some of my daughter's things, primarily a large, won't-quite-fit-in-the-car couch back to college.

LENGTH: 1,076 miles in 27 hours, 17 minutes (including a night's sleep).

ROUTE: Chattanooga, Tennessee to Knoxville, Tennessee to Lexington, Kentucky to Cincinnati, Ohio to Gambier, Ohio.

SOUNDTRACK: 187 songs with the Ipod set on "shuffle," starting with the Stones' "All Down The Line" and ending with LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends." But, the Ipod always surprises you, and some unexpected pleasures along the way included a solo bootleg version of Springsteen's "Racing In The Streets" (I'd forgotten what a great song that is), the always-uplifting "Mtn Cat" by the Sheds, and a Gillian Welch cover of John Hartford's "In Tall Buildings" that brought tears to my eyes and made me wonder what the hell I am doing.

FOOD: a small bag of Smartfood, a Chik-Fil-A combo #1, a Tim Horton's honey-dipped cruller and coffee, a Tim Horton's ham and swiss sandwich combo, a regular size Gold Star chili (4-way with beans), a Steak 'N Shake combo #1.

HIGHLIGHTS: The brief times I spent with my daughter. When I envisioned driving back to college with her, I forgot about the fact that we would be in two cars, mine filled with the large couch. Still, the moments in Chik-Fil-A and Tim Horton's are worth the trip.

LOWLIGHTS: When my daughter cut her departure from a gas station to close and scraped most of the side of her still pretty new car.

A night at a Knight's Inn, arguably the most godawful hotel chain in America. My wife and I spent the second night of our honeymoon in one, something she has never let me forget. But, my daughter and I did escape that dump with no bites despite being in one of the most bedbug-infested cities in America.

ACCIDENTS/SLOWDOWNS: 1

INCIDENTS OF ROAD RAGE:

--flipped off a trucker who swung into fast lane in front of me and proceeded to ride alongside the truck he was supposed to pass for 10 minutes

--held down horn for over a minute (I counted) when a car cut in front of me at the I-75/I-24 split.

--multiple close "cut ins" in front of cars going too slow in fast lane that I had to go around.

--regular and indiscriminate use of the word "cock."

PERSONAL DISCOVERIES: I spent all of 15 minutes at my destination, Kenyon College, and so the drive became mostly just about the driving, not the excitement of getting somewhere, not the chance to enjoy the various beauties of this great land of ours, not the shared memories of the road. Just the driving. At some point, the Ipod gets boring, the seat position gets boring, the chewing of leftover ice in a cup gets boring, the glances into other cars as you pass gets boring, the Right Wing bumper stickers get boring, the giant white cross erected next to the adult superstore gets boring, even the occasional yellowish goop from a collision with a bug gets boring, singing aloud gets boring, phone calls get boring, breaking the law by texting gets boring, even the pleasures of being able to fart with impugnity get boring. And so you race, race, race to get home, and when you get home, everyone is gone shopping and you walk around the house wondering what to do now that you're done.

Spokes Up The Butt

Vehicle - The Ides of March (mp3)
The Road - Matt Costa (mp3)

Last year, I offered a less-than-glowing opinion of runners. Mostly I was having fun with it, tongue planted in cheeky places, poking the proverbial beehive with a stick.

Then last week, I read on our local online rag a piece about controversy between cyclists and pedestrians on one of our noteworthy stretches of public real estate better known as "Riverwalk." The drama concluded with a decision to continue allowing both wheelers and walkers... for now.

Cyclists -- don't call 'em bikers, dude; they're CYCLISTS -- have been a growing population in Chattanooga over the past few decades. As the smog of the '70s and '80s lifted and we became a greener, granola-friendlier locale, more people have come here wearing North Face and Birkenstocks and spending their free time kayaking, rock climbing, and cycling. Frou frou crap straight outta Stuff White People Like.


Several readers of this blog are cyclists, as are several other friends and acquaintances of mine. All of them seem like decent enough people, the kind of people who fight for freedom, justice, and the American Way. People who walk grannies across the street, who stop strangers from taking candy from cuddly widdle kiddies, who will spend thousands of dollars on their dying pet to make sure it receives Hospice care.

And back when they were a tiny, easily-overlooked minority, I felt pity for cyclists. They were neglected. They were not given proper respect. Motorists and pedestrians treated them like steerage or something.

But at some point in the past five or six years, cyclists in Chattanooga passed a tipping point. They started multiplying like bunnies or something. What used to be one lone biker trudging down the road has mutated into a cyclist's Hell's Angels, with five, six, sometimes 10 health-obsessives, all wearing sponsorship gear and funny looking alien technology helmets straight out of that crappy Independence Day movie. I almost expect them to have matching tats like dudes in the military or in frats.

While the rest of us have some place to be -- which is why we're in cars -- we're now obliged to wait patiently behind them as they bolt down the road at 25mph. Cyclists on the open road are the new tractors, the new old women who can't see over their dashboards. Except instead of old and pissed off, they're young and well-conditioned and pissed off. They're trying to beat their fastest time, and all these losers in their gas-guzzling vehicles think whatever they're doing is more important than that?!?

But here's the thing. Most of what those people in cars are doing is more important than besting a previous time cycling down a stretch of road. Yeah, I get that everything is relative -- hell, I practically repeat that phrase like I have Tourette's -- but in almost any comparative scheme in life, one day of exercise just ain't that mission critical compared to getting to work on time or picking up your kid from school.

Because bikers have a measurable population now, however, they're emboldened in ways they weren't when they were a persecuted pittance of people. They now think they have rights and shit, and that their rights are at least as important as those slow-ass walkers who are too busy gabbing to pay attention and runners who won't stop listening to their damn iPods long enough to hear a biker yell "To the left!!"

News flash, biker people. The older and slower you are, the higher you climb on the Right of Way Priority List. Retired grannies in wheelchairs trump everything. Wheelchairs trump walkers. Walkers trump runners. Then people on Big Wheels, then rollerbladers, then skateboarders, then cyclists, and so on and so forth until you get to truckers in big rigs. You are not equal to walkers. Walkers win. Truckers lose. You're somewhere in the middle.

If walkers or runners start making a habit of taking up a stretch of paved asphalt built for the primary purpose of allowing me to be a more efficient worker bee, and if they copped a 'tude about it when motorists dare to think they should move... they'd better buckle up for an increased assault of negativity as well.

As Dirty Steve said to Billy the Kid in "Young Guns," so I say to my cyclist pals: "Apologies Billy. We was just hackin' on ya." Nevermind that Billy goes on to explain that he recently killed a man for hackin' on him.

Road Rules: The Stare

Jemina Pearl--"Looking For Trouble" (mp3)
Mickey Hart's Music Box--"Look Away" (mp3)

It's pretty amazing, isn't it? How little it takes to turn a simple drive down an interstate into a potentially-lethal confrontation?

I can be driving down the road, listening to music I really like, full of belly from a profitable stop at Chik-Fil-A, riding with pleasant company, and all of a sudden, something can happen, some really small thing, and I become a raging madman, ready to take on all comers, unwilling to back down from the slightest slight, ready to duel another vehicle to the death.

There are many causes for this: 1) someone cuts in front of me, 2) someone slows down in the fast lane, 3) someone rides my ass, 4) someone does anything else that pisses me off.

But what really gets me, and most of us, cranked up is THE STARE.

You know what the stare is. It's that personal contact that you make or that someone makes with you when you have the opportunity to meet eyes on the open road. When you're out in the lane and you stare at the other car as you pass it. When a car blasts past you, and, if you're willing, you meet the eyes of the driver who is passing you. If a truck has been jamming you up, keeping you driving slow, and you finally get past it, and you lean way low and look to your right. That's the stare. And if you don't stare correctly, you risk World War III, or at least a small skirmish that is somehow part of it.

Isn't funny how a set of eyes is one of the greatest gifts that we have been given, maybe even the greatest gift, and yet, if we overuse it, it can get us into all kinds of trouble? I think it's probably okay to connect on a passing glance, just enough to get a sense of who the other driver is, but if we hold that stare just a millisecond too long, we're inviting the finger, explosive anger, at least a "What're you lookin' at, sucker?" response.

Usually, I stare all wrong. When I get to the position where I have a chance to get eye to eye, I meet those other eyes, then I look away, but after I do, I start shaking my head out of disgust because when I bother to look at another driver, it's usually because they have been slowing me up.

Women are a different problem. A man wants a good look at a good-looking woman, but on the highway, he has to make that judgement based on her hair alone, if he's coming up behind her--good-looking hair is the first indicator of a good-looking woman, but it is in no way definitive. That means that once he actually sees her, he has to make a split-second decision: if she isn't good-looking, then he has to turn away, but not so quickly as to acknowledge her non-good-lookingness; after all, he is a gentleman. If she is good-looking, he has to make that assessment equally quickly and take her all in, but not in such a way that either she or his wife makes too much of. We don't want to be Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Vacation, after all. Or do we?

But if, God forbid, someone stares at me or at anyone else who is in the position of being a "perpetrator," meaning that we have supposedly wronged someone else, then look out. And that means that you have pulled up along side of me and given me quite the eye, maybe I see your mouth moving while you're looking at me. That I will not take.

Americans have a hard time admitting they're wrong in the best of circumstances, but on the open road, the whole "blame the accuser" notion kicks into its highest gear. All of us are just trying to get somewhere, and most of us are trying to do it with some kind of clock in our heads. And we don't like someone looking at us, challenging the way we drive.

So, you stare at me, and I'm going to kick off the cruise control and stay with you mile for mile until my wife tells me I can't do it anymore because there are two sleeping children in the back who don't need me to be driving at 90 miles per hour.

Go ahead. Just look at me. I dare you.