Friday, April 18, 2008

A Little Poetic Justice

I drive my daughter to school every morning, and the route I take happens to pass through a handful of school zones. I have always been very conscious of my speed while driving through school zones, but of late I have been particularly careful - Check out this accident that happened in front of another school in the Columbus area just the other day and I think you'll understand why. . .

Today was shaping up to be just another one of those commutes; I dutifully slowed to 20MPH through every speed zone and got my daughter to school with a clean conscious and time to spare. Things began to veer from the routine though as I started on my way out of the school parking lot after dropping her off . As I approached the end of the driveway I got there just in time for a parade of vehicles going by on the main road. They were traveling at what I guess to be 25 to 30 MPH. Obviously over the 20MPH limit of a school zone, but much to my consternation, about par for the course on this street. A large enough opening soon approached and I eased on to the street and accelerated to 20. . .

Apparently the woman driving the Lexus ESS YUU VEE I had just pulled in front of was displeased at my rate of travel as she devoured the distance between our vehicles in a hurry and stayed planted on my bumper. While the distance from the school driveway exit and the end of the school zone is only about a block and a half, I decided I should explain things a bit by holding up two fingers signifying "2" followed by the OK sign signifying "0" - The speed limit and the speed at which I was traveling. I did that a couple times, and then sped up as we left the school zone. I thought what would be enough to remind the tailgater behind me that the slower speed is expected between the signs with the flashing yellow lights, and that would be it.

I was wrong.

After the school zone was passed, I caught up to the parade of cars. Apparently someone had turned left and delayed things enough that me and the tailgater soon found ourselves bringing up the rear of a fairly long line of vehicles. So now we are going along with traffic, the Lexus grill is still looming large in my mirror, and we are approaching an intersection where the light is turning red.

Much to my relief, I want to go straight at the light, and she wants to go right. The right lane is a right turn only lane, and is backed up farther than the lane I'm in.

But folks are making rights on red and so she eventually pulls up next to me. I'm watching to see if she makes any indication that she had seen my "2" and "0" signs earlier, but fully expected nothing. By her reaction of putting both hands in her window showing two fingers on one and five on the other I would guess that she had seen my gestures. Unfortunately the fact that we were in the school zone was completely lost on her.

Anyway, now comes the best part, the justice I mentioned in the title.

As I was saying, she was in a right turn only lane - The traffic in front of her was moving fairly steadily as no oncoming traffic prevented safe turns on red. She rolled by, both hands and whole face in her window as I watched, chuckling at the absurdity of her seeming indignation. In disgust she whipped her hands back to the steering wheel, disappeared from my sight behind the door frame of the Lexus, and hit the gas. . . Right into the rear bumper of an old lady in her Mercedes waiting to turn right!

Oh. My. GOODNESS!!! I don't think I have ever seen something so exquisite! The light turned green and I started to head on my way. As I wanted to be sure the bump was minor, (it was) I went by slowly to check things out. My glance was rewarded with this statement, mouthed very obviously by the now very pissed off Lexus driver, "Thank you very much!" "See what you did!" I couldn't help but laugh. I waved cheerfully as I resumed my commute. . .

I think she could benefit from what John G Miller has to say. Then again, maybe I should revisit his book myself.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Where have you been?

Heh, well, I guess I must confess that I have been very distracted lately with a new toy. My kids gave me a Nintendo DS for my birthday last month, and I - as she will tell you - have made my long suffering wife a Video Game Widow. . . I just love Zelda games - and Phantom Hourglass has me hook, line, and sinker. . . *sigh*

And you, dear readers, have been without any word from yours truly for much too long.

Another confession. I can't blame my lack of blogging recently entirely on my new toy. The actual reason, I think, is that I have been filling up every spare Blog moment reading blogs rather than writing one. I made the mistake of finding a few two many interesting blogs that I just can't skip for fear of getting behind. And they are some very prolific blogs!

That's my story anyway, and I'll be sticking to it, Thank you very much . . .