Friday, August 03, 2012

Trying to put it politely

Okay, first off, I want to say thank you to ~~Silk, for standing up for me over at that Dooce post. You know, I wrote that (admittedly somewhat juvenile) post a long, long time ago and then moved on, and it amazes me that the nutjobs are STILL having a field day over there. Whatevs, you crazies. And thanks again, ~~Silk. You're a good person.

And in other news, my ankle STILL hurts. I've decided that I've been the victim of some kind of bizarre apian revenge plot, wherein this year's crop of yellowjackets saved up all of their venom for me, in retribution for killing their ancestors two years ago. Karma's a bitch.

Now. On to business. I usually drive a busy highway to work, but that road has been under construction all summer and will be for the foreseeable future, so I've been driving a quiet little two-lane rural road most of the way in. The speed limit on this road is 30 mph, and you really don't want to go much faster than that, because there's lots of curves and hills and deer standing in the middle of the road that you have to honk your horn at until they mosey off.

Oh, and it's double-solid-yellow-line all the way, meaning no passing. But the road's only a few miles long, meaning you're on it for, like, ten minutes, max, so no biggie, right?


Wrong. At least half of the time, there's some asshole in a giant pickup truck right off my back bumper, going apoplectic because I'm *only* doing 40, and he's got something important to get to GOD DAMMIT!

Whenever I can, I pull over to let Joe Asshole go get to his very important thing, which he then arrives at an entire THIRTY SECONDS SOONER because I got out of his way. But these f*cktards are giving me a headache, and the other day, when I was on my way home with some dipsh*t in a giant SUV so close behind me he was practically on top of me, I started thinking up possible bumperstickers, to give the assholes some reading material while they were right on my bumper. At first I thought of,


BACK OFF, ASSHOLE

But that seemed a little ... hostile. And not suitable for viewing by children. Maybe sweeten it up a little?

BACK OFF, BUTTERCUP

Hmmm ...

BACK OFF, SWEETIE-PIE

Maybe go the humorous route?

BACK OFF - I don't know you that well

BACK OFF - I'm just not that into you

BACK OFF - Don't make the nun get out her ruler

That last one's my personal favorite, but I don't know if Joe Neanderthal in his Dodge Denali would get the joke.

I don't know - what do you guys think? Any ideas?

10 comments:

Zella said...

Ha, ha... I'm just not that into you gets my vote :)

Laura said...

I like to gradually decelerate when those assholes are on my bumper and take the power back. They want me to speed up? THEN I WILL SLOW THEM DOWN.

Anonymous said...

I had a different traffic dilemma. I'm not that impatient a person and I wasn't in a rush this morning, but the hipster dude in front of me decided that he'd be magnanimous and *back up* to let a pretty girl go left and block up two lanes of traffic. Ok, so he was just being kind. Let it go. THEN, he held up our entire lane of traffic to let all the traffic from the other lane merge in front of us. DUDE! There are people behind you. Have a little consideration -- you made three people happy and stroked your ego but there are eleven of us back here who think you are a doofus.

- bridgett

Anonymous said...

And "I'm just not that into you." is great.

- bridgett

Becs said...

I usually pull over if someone is in that much of a hurry.

Once I let a woman in a red sports car zoom past me. I went maybe 100 yards down the road and a cop had pulled her over. These are the moments when life is so sweet...

"I'm not into you" gets my vote.

Becs said...

I can't even remember the Dooce post. Was it here?

I scanned her mobile site a little today and I'm surprised Child Protective Services hasn't been knocking on her door. I mean, this is a child we're talking about here, right?

Whatever is her deal is so not my deal. If we ever met, the universe would collapse in on itself and the space-time continuum would be null and void.

rockygrace said...

Zella, it looks like we have a winner!

Laura, I would LOVE to just slow down. But I'm afraid I'd get shot.

bridgett, I agree that there's a limit to kindness to strangers. Especially in traffic.

and Becs, the Dooce post was here, back in January I think. The title was, "Dooce is getting a divorce and I'm glad", which, I KNOW, but you would not BELIEVE how worked up some dooce-o-philes got about it. They're STILL commenting.

~~Silk said...

Re Dooce - there's a (long and thorough) New York Times article from a few years back that points out that people who DON'T bow to her actually increase her income by increasing her blog traffic. People make repeated visits to snipe at each other. You've discovered for yourself that people who defend her increase your blog traffic.

~~Silk said...

I don't know if they still exist, but you used to be able to buy a light strip (a "crawl") that you could put in the back window with a keypad on the dashboard, and you could send personalized messages to anyone behind you.

I got blasted by some idiot in a huge SUV yesterday for daring to actually stop at a stop sign in the neighborhood.

rockygrace said...

Ha, ~~Silk, yeah, that post got my most hits ever by far. And it was all people telling me what a mean, pathetic person I am. :)

I swear, I banged that thing out in like five minutes. Too bad everybody got so worked up.

and I love love love the idea of a message board in the back of the car. But I'd probably crash while trying to type "F*CK YOU F*CK YOU F*CK YOU".