It is hard to describe this story. To say it is PG rated is too conservative. And, I can safely say that I have never had this experience before. In modern language . . . OMG!!!
Picture this if you will; beautiful Sunday morning, stunning weather, perfect start to the trip back home. We are well rested, well fed and happy to be making headed home. The car is loaded and we pull out of the hotel parking lot, out onto a main street to get gas. As I am about to pull onto this street, I see there are three cars slowly headed our way. I am at the crest of a hill and realize that the front of our Lincoln Navigator is sticking out a little bit in the road. The lead car of the three, begins to slow down, and I slowly back up to move out of the way. This lead car doesn't regain his speed. He continues to come toward us, eventually passing in front of us and he beeps his horn as he passes. I think to myself, "Wow, somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."
After the third car passes, I slowly pull out onto this main road and approach the intersection, where all three cars are waiting for the light to change. I pull up alongside the car that beeped, as I am now in the turn lane and the other cars are going straight. Now, here is where everything gets weird, crude, and at least R rated! As I pass the lead car, approaching the line at the intersection, I notice this man, older than me, is holding his right arm up in the air. I can't really see what he is doing as I inch our big car past him by a little bit. Thirty seconds later, he slowly pulls up beside me, waiting for the light to change, with his arm still stuck up in the air. Now I realize the significance, he is flicking me off, shooting me a bird, giving me the finger; how ever you want to phrase it, he is crudely letting me know he isn't happy. As I hesitate, trying to understand what he is doing, he begins to mouth the "F" word, followed by "YOU" while he continues with the finger up in the air. It takes me a few seconds to register what is happening. This is road rage, on a beautiful Sunday morning. Unbelievable is all I can think. And then, I do something totally uncharacteristic . . . No, I don't mimic his poor, crude behavior. But I do mouth the words, "does that make you feel better?" What was I thinking? That this would somehow make him stop this ridiculous behavior. Of course that wouldn't happen, quite the opposite! He continues with his obscenities and I am growing nervous and, embarrassed, because I have three teenagers in the back watching this scene, from a bad movie, play out in front of us, and I looked like the co-star.
I truly don't know what came over me. Before I knew it, this perverted, grown man, was acting like he was undoing his pants, pulling on himself, making awful facial expressions and then he began to stick out his tung, pretending to do, God only knows what. I sat there stunned, frozen, thinking, "this can't really be happening, can the boys see any of this, what if he gets out of the car, how old is this man, why is he so mad" . . . thankfully, the boys saw NONE of what I did. Thank goodness. As soon as the light changed, I turned right and he went straight, right arm and finger up, as if saluting one last time. I pulled into the gas station and as I pumped gas, began to worry about what might be next. Would he turn around and see that I was parked, out of my car? I hurriedly pumped the gas, got back in the car, had a teachable moment with the boys and left Greenville.
The boys had a million questions, wanted to go find him and let him know how wrong he was. Their chivalry was sweet, but it does scare me. This man was crazy. If he had had a gun, what might he have done? I couldn't quit thinking about the set of circumstances, wondering what had happened to him before he rounded that curve in the road and came up on my big car, sticking out in the street. My wave and mouthing "sorry" as he slowly passed by my, didn't serve the purpose I intended. He was VERY angry, probably long before he saw our car. Scary to say the least!
I did pray for him to find peace, comfort, time to heal his heart and find happiness. I hope God reached him through his armor. I hope he didn't hurt any one else.
Surreal!
Be nTouch
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