Thursday, August 20, 2009

"Drive Through Road Rage" by Louie Mercer

This is a guest post from a man that I truly respect, Louie Mercer. He has a great blog and he is one of my favorite Christ-followers.

road-rage-hypermiling-001

My 4 year old son had oral surgery Wednesday morning, 8am. He did fine. On the way home, at about 9am, I went to the local McDonalds to get a cup of coffee for the ride home. The drive through line was jammed so that you had to actually drive around the entire store to get in line…not just the drive up and get in line like you can at say, 10am. So, I did the drive around the store, get 10th in line and waited my turn patiently while my son sat in the car seat in the back seat….taking all this in.

A lady in a sort of nice car, with her 12 year old son saw me 10th in line with about 4 people behind me. She did not drive around and get at the end of the line. like me and everybody else..she crammed her bumper right between me and the car ahead.. cut the drive through line..blocked the traffic lane,….blocked the snake of a drive through lane….looked at me with a, “kiss my…..” look and her son was laughing, looking back at me like a 12 year old will when they get away with something and know it… and the mother just scowled a little with a smerk.

My son said, “daddy she got in front of you”. Oh man, I was ticked off to the point of internal rage. I mean it is just a cup of coffee. It is just a drive through line. I had the day off. But it ticked me off so bad that I actually had tunnel vision and, in my mind, for that brief moment… I could envision just ramming my truck into the side of her car, then walking over and slapping the grin off of the boy’s face….then jerking her out of the car, moving it back and then going to get my coffee.

Man, I got issues…. think my buddy Mike is Messed Up? I know I am! Then I thought about Matthew 5, where Jesus said,..turn the other cheek. If they want your coat…give them you cloak too. I bet Jesus has never been cut off in a drive thru. Darn bible got in my way again of enjoying my rage. I gave her my spot and did not even shoot her a bird. I am glad God loves me.

1 comment:

  1. I was bringing my Wife home from work yesterday. There was an accident at the intersection and I needed to merge to the left. I put on my blinker and started to "slowly" as the traffic was at about 1mph...the car behind me decided I was not going to get "in front" of him, so he blocked me out. The car behind me let me in.

    As we went thru the intersection and started over the Seabreeze bridge, I speeded up to catch the guy in the beater car who wouldn't let me in.

    I stayed pace with him and looked over in a brief moment. He didn't look over so I continued over the bride and thru the light at the bottom. As I went thru, it turned yellow and he stopped.

    What was his hurry to not let me in? I have no idea. I'm signaling I need over, had given him pleanty of time to see me and to let me over.

    I felt a bit better that he had to stop since he seemed so matter of fact to "hold" me up just a half mile back. But I couldn't understand his thinking? I just wanted to have him look over so he could acknowledge cutting me off.

    Then, I thot...why let this guy bother me. I've more important things in my life to do than to deal with "road rage" or other idiot drivers.

    Why can't people just slow down a bit and take time to be careful and respect others as well? Especially when driving something that can KILL others.

    Thx 4 posting, Mike. And 4 your patience with your situation. You set a good example for your son and showed who was the bigger person.

    ReplyDelete