!@#!!!%%

It might be middle-age or just maybe the slowly but ever steadily increasing demands and expectations at work, but I’ve increasingly become an angry driver when on the road. Not in aggression or exhibitions of dangerous driving, mind you – nothing quite like that. But specifically in venting on the (apparent to me at least) bad habits and uncouth behaviors of many drivers around here.

For instance:

A car cuts in from the right into our lane with barely inches to spare and without signaling.

CY: “Crazy driver. I hope he bangs his car into a tree!”

Ling: “Dear, please don’t curse!”

Or this:

A sports-type car with all the black-dark tint windows and what sounds like a nitro-injected engine whizzes loudly past us, with wound-down windows, and an arm stretched right out with a cigarette.

CY: “I hate smokers. Doesn’t he know that his arm can hit motorcyclists? I hope he gets lung cancer!”

Ling: “Darling, please don’t curse!”

Or even something like that:

A car window wounds down, and out comes an entire mouthful of spit.

CY: “I hate people who spit! I hope he chokes on his saliva!”

Ling: “Dear, you shouldn’t be wishing evil on others!”

The both of us drive defensively and scrupulously abide with our traffic laws – and when someone doesn’t play by the rules of the land, I get morally indignant and vent to the much more civil wife who has to listen to me mouth off the most inventive curses I can muster – the above three aren’t nearly representative of my creative juices.

The funniest thing though is that I don’t possess ill intentions to those fellows whose driving behaviors irk me. Rather, the venting is actually a sort of verbal engagement I’ve got going on with Ling, and it does make for funny conversations in the car – though she usually often ends up sighing in resignation.

Not that this might keep going on for that much longer, given the prices of today’s Certificate of Entitlement. We just might not be able to afford a car in the years to come.=(