Bad night equates into a bad morning. This means I was grumpy as all get up this morning when I left for work. Every step hurts, every movement is an effort. However, it is registration week and I need to be at work.
I grumbled my way to the car, drove to work. On my way to work, however, I nearly got taken out. I’m driving along – I drive a minivan, which isn’t a small vehicle or hard to see – and this guy comes on the road via an onramp. I’m in the left lane and the right lane has room. He only needed to tap his brakes to be able to stay in the right lane. Without looking or signalling, he slides into the left lane. I was well over the grooves on the side of the road and nearly in the ditch as I slammed on the brakes and evaded his invasion into my lane. I blew my horn at him and swallowed my heart out of my throat.
He passed the car in the right lane and got back into the right lane. My first reaction was to speed up enough to catch up to him and either invade his lane or flip him off. I took a deep breath and did neither. There was definitely some words said in my van that were not PG rated.
I was being followed by a pickup and when he passed me (my exit was coming up so I had gotten over) I got a look from him. I’m glad he was back far enough to avoid hitting me and I’m glad I could avoid that other guy (I say guy because I don’t know if it was a man or woman – too busy trying not to get hit to notice).
Eventually my heart stopped racing and I mellowed out. We’ve all done the thing where we get on the onramp and slip into the left lane. The thing is – take a moment to pause in that right lane before you shift over so you can look to see if there is someone already in that left lane before you slide over. I know I’ll be checking more diligently after this morning.