feral children

[sienamystic]

Driving back from the gym, I needed to get into the right lane to make a turn. Usually a few cars peel off into the Target parking lot, but none did and I figured I wouldn't be able to make the turn. But I was able to speed up and pull into a gap left by a battered pickup truck which had fallen back, and did it without anybody having to slam on brakes. I'd say it was a typical aggressive east-coast driver move, except I don't think it would rate on that scale because I wasn't legitimately cutting anybody off. There was a big gap, I could take it, so I took it. While we're sitting to make the right turn, behind a car that's ahead of me, I hear a commotion...male voices yelling behind me. I'm confused - is this directed at me? Somebody in an adjacent car?

We make the turn, the pickup is behind us and pulls out and around to pass us. And then, again from behind us, comes a white sedan and a young feral manchild is leaning out of the window, calling me a bitch, screaming incoherently, pulling up past me to pull level with the pickup but still making sure that he's facing me to call me things.

I ended up pulling out onto a side street so we wouldn't be caught next to them at the next stoplight. And I am still completely baffled by the whole thing. Am I a bitch because I dared to pass the dude in the pickup truck, causing his buddies in the white car to defend his honor? Is it a Nebraska thing to be outraged at my little display of ever-so-mild assertive driving? Was he just drunk and looking for a target?

I hate ugliness and feeling threatened like that. I also hate that I don't even understand why it happened.

Comments

[siliconivy.livejournal.com]

that's just ... strange. I'd be baffled too.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

All I can do at this point is chalk it up to testosterone and a few beers, because nothing else makes much sense.

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

That kind of behaviour is completely unwarranted, even if they thought that you had manoeuvred inappropriately, which I am sure you didn't. How very distressing for you. *hugs hard*

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I wouldn't have been shocked, had I cut somebody off legitimately, to receive a middle finger flipped my way...but this guy was hanging out of his car screaming at me for no real reason. Bah.

[(Anonymous)]

In Boston, this is called 'driving'. :/ They were jerks, you did nothing wrong. But I assure you, I'd be shaken over the incident too. *Hugs* ~Kate-h

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

In DC, the guy in the truck would have been tailgating the car ahead of him to make sure nobody could possibly slip in! You fall back and leave a big gap, expect somebody to hop into it...no harm, no foul. Gah.