Life Lesson

Guest Blogger: Adam Darowski

Here's an anecdote from the other day: My drive to work involves an 18 mile trip down I 35 from Coppell to Downtown Dallas. Well, the other day traffic on I 35 was moving steadily, but slower than usual. It was approximately 7:15 A.M. There was a line of cars merging onto the freeway at the on ramp I use. As it became my turn to merge onto the freeway the car behind me tried to pull a "fast one" and merge over sooner than I did, like something a jerk would do, and speed up past me. Kind of like cutting in line. This violates several unwritten rules of freeway on-ramp etiquette and was a bold move. Noticing this, I immediately sped up and got ahead of the car again, causing this car to have to slow down (i.e., cutting him off) as the on-ramp merged with the "slow lane" (kind of a jerky thing to do on my part as well, but my reaction was not disproportionate). Upon doing this, the other car honked at me. I thought it was an angry honk as opposed to a courtesy honk or a "you've got a flat tire" honk. I thought, "Settle down, Road Rager. You were trying to cut in line. You can't possibly be angry about that."

So I was in front of this car now, and as soon as it could, the car switched lanes and pulled up beside me. My body proceeded to produce a low level jolt of adrenaline. I sped up a bit in my lane, and the car stayed right beside me. Then I glanced over, and they guy had rolled down his passenger side window and was clearly motioning for me to roll down my window. The guy appeared to be a male in his early 20's (i.e., a possible shooter). This was happening as we were clipping along at 50 mph down the freeway. My body produced slightly more adrenaline at this point, such that I began to tingle all over, and I thought to myself, "Hmm, I hope this guy does not shoot me in the head." I pretended like I did not see him and sped up past him. I worried that he might follow me to work and try to beat me with a tire iron (seems like those road rage guys like to do their beatings with tire irons, if they don't shoot you first), but I figured that since you have to pay like 5 bucks to park in my buildings garage, this guy would be dissuaded by the cost.

Any how, I worked pretty late the prior two nights, so I had planned on leaving work around 5 p.m. that night to give Laurel a break from the kids. I got out to my car at 5:05 or so, and wouldn't you know it, I had a totally flat tire (rear driver's side). There was no sign of puncture marks, so I figured the Road Rage Guy had not come in slashed it. It was just flat. Then I replayed the scene from that morning in my head, kind of like one of those movies where they show the same scene from different points of view, or with slightly different endings. I wondered then if the Road Rage Guy was really just pulling up next to me to warn me that I was driving on a flat tire. Wouldn't that have been ironic! I thought I was the victim, when maybe really I was too stubborn (or afraid) to listed to someone offering help. So that's a life lesson.