I walk out my door and breath the air.  The birds are singing, the air is crisp, the sky is clear and blue, the trees are whispering their secrets in a breeze so slight I can barely feel it.  I feel wonderful and alive.

I get in my car, turn on some music and begin the drive down my driveway (really an alley behind a row of houses).  As I approach the street, a woman walking her dog begins to cross the entrance to the driveway.  I stop and watch.  Is she going to look up?  Is she going to acknowledge another human being just a few feet away?  50/50 shot really.  I wait.

Finally, as she nears the other side, though the eyes do not lift, a hand comes up in the "thanks for not running me over" gesture. 

At least assured that she knew the car wasn't on 100% autopilot, I drive onto the street, heading out of my little housing area onto the main road.  It's a little "T" intersection, and I intend to turn left.  I look both ways and notice a car approaching from my left.  No turn signal and he is hauling ass.  Must be going straight.  Hope he's going straight!

He begins to veer toward me and I have this moment of panic: holy shit, is he going to make the turn or sideswipe me, turning my little jaunt into town into something rather messy??  I brace for impact, not that it will help.

Finally, at the last moment, he whips around the corner, making the turn and missing the side of my car.  My heart racing, I take another look onto the road and make my turn, wishing all the while that the unknown driver had at least taken my safety into consideration while he was being so reckless with his own.

A few traffic lights and turn signals later, I am on another main drag.  The speed limit on this road is 35.  I am such a rebel, I am going 37!  I look in the rear view mirror and notice an SUV bearing down on me quickly.  This feels oddly familiar! 

She (because 90% of SUV's are driven by "she's"*) comes within inches of my rear bumper and stays there.  I can practically taste her impatience, but I am not moving out of her way.  I am following the speed limit.. exceeding it by a small amount in fact.  I am not going to cower before her threatening size and rudeness.

Finally, doing a wonderful impression of a compact car, she whips into the next lane and zooms past me, refusing to look at me, her HUGE sunglasses blocking all but the haughty sneer on her lips.

When I get to the next light, which is red, she is there.  I can't help but chuckle.  What did her impatience get her?  Didn't get her very far.  I bet she's blaming the few seconds she was stuck behind me as the reason she didn't "beat" the light.

I look at the car in front of me and notice a bumper sticker which reads, "I may be a cruel and heartless bitch, but I'm damn good at it!"

My good mood from just five minutes ago is slipping away.

I get on the highway.  At one point, a U-Haul to my left is clearly intent on getting into my lane.  Problem is, at 70 mph, if he tries, we're going to be in a world of hurt.  I honk twice to get him to stop his merge.  He pulls back  into his lane, at which point I back off, giving him enough room to merge in front of me.  He does. 

He later proceeds off the highway.  I look to my right at his exiting vehicle, and see something that doesn't compute:

He's flipping me off.  Not only is he flipping me off, but he's holding the gesture for the entire trip down the long off-ramp.** 

/confused??

Several miles pass.  I get to the store.  I park. 

I sit and collect myself. 

I begin walking across the parking lot, and as I cross right in front of the store entrance, a road which has several pedestrians waiting to cross or in varying stages of crossing, a woman in a Prius speeds up to "beat" the pedestrians.  I was already halfway across the road.

Having had enough, I move so that she'll have to hit me if she wants to zoom through.  I put out my arm, point my finger, and say, "No ma'am...you are going to stop."

She does.  Slams on her brakes, in fact.  I can see her mouth make the words.  "Fuck you."  I note, with great interest, that she refuses to make eye contact. ***

I grab a cart and head into the store, wanting this to be if not a good experience at least a neutral one.  Is it enough to hope that, even though the experience I just had was probably either perpetrated or experienced by every other person in that store in some way, that they remained untainted by it?  That, face-to-face with other human beings, they will remember who they are and what we all have in common?

While in the vegetable section, my cart pushed as far to the side as possible as to not impede others, I peruse the lettuce.  I can see someone is looking at the same, and I back up a bit so they can reach, looking at them and smiling.  They move in, grab the lettuce, and walk off.

/sigh

I then notice that my 9 year old, who is getting some apples at my request, is blocking the aisle.  He can't help it, as the aisles in this store are very cramped.  A middle-aged woman is looking at him with disgust.. trying to telepathically order him out of her way, apparently, because her down turned mouth refused to say those two little magic words.

My son noticed, and promptly moved out of her way, looking guilty and some other unnamed emotion that I hate seeing on his face.  She pushed her cart past.  Not a look.  Not a word.

When, at some point in our shopping, we chanced to find ourselves near her again, I told my son, "From now on, if someone wants by and they won't say excuse me, just pretend they are not there.  You should always say excuse me though, ok?"

I want him to be polite.  I don't however, believe in being a doormat just to placate others' sense of self.

On the way home I decided to go through the Starbuck's drive-thru.  I order for everyone in the car, I pull around.  I pay.  A truck pulls in behind me.  I wait for my drinks.  I feel a bump.

Thinking someone must have bumped into the truck behind me, bumping him into me, I look.  There is no one behind him.  Confused, I look at my  16 yr old son, who says, "He did it on purpose."

No way.  Then...

BUMP again.

I turn around in my seat, and the man behind the wheel puts up his hands, chuckles, and mouths sorry.

Apparently, the process was moving a bit too slowly for him and wanted to move things along.****

By the time I get home, well before I get home actually, I am so thoroughly depressed.  I feel like a dog who, upon seeing another dog, begins to wag and yip and call out, "Hey!  Hey!! You are another me!  Hey, everyone!  Do you see that over there?  It's another ME!  Whooohooo!! Hello me!!" only to be ignored, rebuffed, or even attacked.

Eventually, when the dog sees another dog, another him, he doesn't whoop and dance about in joy.  He gives a tentative wag of the tail, still willing to try to make contact but expecting rejection.

Why?  Why are people so.. angry?  Cold?  Impatient?  Rude?  I have friends.  we love each other, we laugh, we share.  So why is it so different "out there"?

My 16 year old has a theory.  He says, "We are 'meant' to live in groups of 20, 40, 100.  Not thousands or millions."

I think he may have a point.  I also think that our culture of the automobile has changed the way we view each other.   A great majority of the people we come into contact with every day are nameless and faceless, made worse by expression-hiding contraptions like tinted windows and the huge sunglasses.  We vie for space.  We fight for our rights.  When at last we come face to face, we have no compassion.  No love.  No commonality beyond distrust and a lack of caring.

Does this make anyone else soul-crushingly sad?


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* Not an actual scientific fact.
**An actual event.. and it still confuses me.
***While all of these are based on real events that transpire on any given day out, this one happened in the Whole Foods parking lot, two days before Thanksgiving, and the pedestrians consisted of a few random people plus myself, my two kids and my 83 year old grandmother.
****Again, a true event.  I regret not getting out of my car and confronting him but I was so stunned....


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