Alcoholics Anonymous has a highly successful 12 step program to help people manage their addiction. I believe the first step in that process is admitting you have a problem. Well, my friends, it's time I admit I have a problem. My name is Jennifer and I have Road Rage. There. I said it. What a relief to finally get that off my chest. Most of you probably didn't know about my affliction. Not because I hide it very well, but more so because most of you have not been in a car with me when I'm driving. Hell, I don't even have to be driving for my rage to take over (Come to think of it, considering my issues with rage discussed in the Watchdogs post, maybe I just have rage issues? Hmmm. Whatever). The idea for this post came to me as I was driving to work this morning and battling rush hour traffic on the Berlin Turnpike. As I was going along, keeping up with the morning traffic (well, except for the guy who was driving like a comatose 98 year old, driving the First Model T off the line and doing like 15 miles per hour, I just had to get the hell around that guy. I mean, seriously! If I stayed behind this guy the whole way, I'd be late for my retirement party by the time I got to work. FIND THE GAS PEDAL, GRAMPA!!!)...Anyway, as I was saying, I was keeping up with morning traffic when this guy comes from the next lane over and totally cuts me off! WTF!?!?! Seriously, dude! Where the hell are you going that you couldn't wait an extra 2 SECONDS to get there?!?! What the hell is so damn important that you had to get in front of me in order to make sure you arrived that fraction of a second sooner?!!? I wondered if he realized that this was not a rally; neither Smokey, nor the Bandit were anywhere in the near vicinity; and there were no scantily clad women waiting for him at the highway entrance ramp a mile down the road, waving a checkered flag and popping open bottles of champagne .
As I sat there, becoming immediately incoherent as I tried not to swear (because RM was in the backseat) and I looked as if I might be developing a parkinsonian tremor as I desperately fought the urge to flip this guy off, I began to reflect on the course of my road rage illness. I seemed to remember it starting pretty early on as I felt the gauntlet being thrown down by any car who pulled up along side me at a red light, on the highway, anywhere. It always, for some reason, felt as if the person was directly challenging me personally, to some contest to see who was the better driver and the winner would clearly be the person who could peel away from the starting point as quickly as possible, thereby being a better person. Clearly. That seems perfectly rational. Now, historically, I have had decent cars, but I would not qualify any of them as being fast cars. The closest I ever came to having a fast one was the very first car I had: a 1980 Audi 5000 Turbo. You might be sitting there thinking, "Nice car", but before you start having too many fantasies about it, let me tell you about that car. It had belonged to my father's cousin and my folks bought it for me thinking it would be a good starter car. It was automatic and had power windows, locks, automatic seat belts and all the bells and whistles. Or, at least, that's how it came equipped. The reality of the car was more like this: once you clicked the front passenger seat belt into place, it was virtually impossible to undo it, so you had to slip out of the seat. The buttons for the power windows would fall off in your hands and, once they did, you better pray the windows were up. The motor for the power window on the driver's door actually fell out, which meant that if I wanted to open or close the window, I had to pull over, open the door, grip either side of the glass with the palms of my hands and slowly move it up or down. Up was not so bad, but moving it down was a precision operation because if I put it too low, the window would fall in the door and I'd have to take the door apart to get it back up. As you can well imagine, toll booths and unexpected rain showers SUCKED! The power antenna got broken off in a car wash, so that just ended up being a gaping hole that would leak into the trunk. The cable that connected the release latch from the interior of the car to the gas tank would disconnect at random and I would have to open the cap with a screwdriver. There was a constant and unexplained wet spot on the floor behind the driver's seat (Don't know. Don't want to know). I once hit a bump and it snapped the front axle. There were so many warning lights consistently lit up on the dashboard that I used to turn on my hazards and flash my high beams and pretend it was Christmas as all the lights in my car blink and flickered. And, finally, this car was recalled because the car would spontaneously jerk backwards while in park, which Audi attributed to driver error (of course), so they put a little tab on the stick shift that you would have to release in order to put the car in reverse. That car broke down on me so many times that I lost count and, the one time that I did try to outrun someone in it...I blew out the engine. Huge plume of thick, black smoke pouring out of every possible opening it had. Damn car (Allen Audi: 1980 - 1987). After that, all hopes of a speed machine were out the window and with them, all hopes of ever being able to handily beat someone off the "starting line" also vanished. I didn't realize it at the time, but for some reason, this directly tied in to my self esteem (Holy crap, I think we're coming back to the competitive thing for me again! Jeez, I need therapy. Anyone out there know anybody good?).
My next car was my 1983 Honda Accord Hatchback. God, I loved that car. But, again, not a speed machine. This thing would get me through any snow storm and had the best heater of any car out there, but speed...not a strong suit. It was...well...it was a reliable car. That's the kiss of death for a car you want to be speedy, isn't it? It's kind of like when a guy likes a girl and she says that he's like her brother...done. No sugar for you, buddy. You're the reliable car. Not the cool, speed machine. Anyway, I had the reliable car and, no matter how much I wanted it to be speedy, it wasn't. While I loved that car immensely, it directly contributed to my road rage as I had years of pent up anger and frustration from the number of times I got left in the dust as red lights went green. Speed was not the only drawback about that car; it also did not have a sunroof. I remember that made me so crazy that, one night in college, it was either a Friday or Saturday night and I was...um, well, I was....probably not thinking as clearly as I would have been on a Thursday morning, I decided to fix that problem. My attempt to rectify the sunroof problem was not well thought out as I grabbed my sandwich from the Yuck Truck (our greasy food truck on campus that would blow itself up a year after my graduation) and proceeded to jump up and down on the roof of the car hoping it would make a hole for the sunroof. What I would have done had I succeeded in opening up a hole is completely unknown to me, but it made absolute, complete perfect sense to me at the time. Despite the frustration this car nurtured in me, the demise of that car was tragic. I was going to graduate school in Philadelphia and my classes were all at night. The school I was attending was not in a great area and, when classes were done...well, let's just way we weren't hanging out at the local bar for a beer. On the night of Harry's (my Honda's) passing, the Phillies were in the playoffs and a bunch of us were headed to a bar near my apartment to watch the game. One of our classmates did not know her way around the area well and asked if she could follow me. Sure, why not? I'll tell you why not: it was raining and my friend was driving her sister's van that night. And not just any van. No. It was one of those luxury vans with the captain's chairs in the back, a table in the middle and, I would guess, custom lighting throughout. I don't remember, but I'm relatively certain that it had a sticker on it somewhere that said, "If this van's a rockin', don't come a knockin'". Since it was her sister's van, she wasn't used to driving it and, as I came to a stop at a light, she did not. I remember looking in my rear view mirror and thinking, "She's going to stop. She's going to stop. She's going to stop. Stop. Stop! STOP!" BAAAAMMMM. Next thing I knew, I was stepping out of my car...at 10 o'clock at night...with a black eye, a concussion and in a very bad area. My friend jumped out of her van and came running over to me and, as she started talking to me, I noticed a couple of women in housecoats and rollers standing on their front porch. As I began to focus on what the hell was going on around me, I heard one of the women say, "I saw the whole thing, baby. She hit you HARD. I can tell the police what happened, but you shouldn't stay here. You two girls should go the police department tomorrow when it's light out. Right now, you should go home". And that's what we did. I drove my little car to my apartment and realized that the back end of it was riding shotgun with me (yeah, it was pretty much next to the passenger side of the car). My parents were out of town when I had my accident and I had to drive the car back from Philly to CT the next day (at least, that's what made sense in my concussed head) and it took me so damn long to make that drive. I don't think I could get Harry to go faster than 45 mph on the NJ Turnpike. What a freaking nightmare. Anyway, that was the end of Harry Honda: 1983-1991. RIP, my friend.
My next car, a rebuilt Nissan Stanza (aka Stanley) was ok, but no speed demon. Did he earn me a speeding ticket? Yes, but he wasn't really good at getting off the line quickly. That, and one day while driving on the highway, the gas pedal just kind of...well, fell. I mean, it just fell flat on the floor. Let's recap: me on highway with an impotent gas pedal. Solution: I turned on the cruise control and hoped for the best. That tactic actually got me home, but Stanley was clearly not one that could be counted on to alleviate any road rage that had been accumulating. His demise? A busted timing belt that took out my engine as it flailed about. Stanley Stanza: 1989-2000.
Sadly, my next, and current car, is a 2001 Toyota Camry (Cameron). Again, I have been blessed (cursed?) with a reliable car. What this has meant is that my road rage becomes increasingly toxic and deadly as the years progress. These days, in addition to having fantasies about chasing people down and letting all the air out of their tires, I find myself questioning if people expect green lights to turn any greener if they sit there and stare at them long enough. I wonder if people over 85 are required to ride their brakes so hard and long that they need new brake pads after each trip to the grocery store. And, in construction zones, I find that I am fluent in weaving together obscenities in several different languages. Languages I didn't even know I knew. When I was younger, I used to dream of the days when I would have a fast car and I could blow away any punk who dared pull his pansy ass go kart up next to my sweet ride... Unfortunately, given the fact that I am now 41, married, and have a child, I think the only sweet ride in my future involves a minivan peppered with melted ice cream and half drunk juice boxes. Do you think I can get one with custom lighting?
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