It’s been snowy in Colorado, and I have something important to report beyond the weather.
The other night I’m driving in some pretty crap conditions. It’s not my first rodeo (which is a turn of phrase that indicates, to me, that a rodeo could involve goddamn ANYTHING) so I’m driving somewhere in the middle of the pack. People are passing me, I’m passing other people. Not the fastest on the road, but definitely not the slowest either.
I’m in the right lane, the place I belong, when I catch a sliver of headlights in my rearview. Just a top sliver. Which happens because, it turns out, this motherfucker was RIGHT behind me. So close I couldn’t see him there because his headlights were shining into my bumper.
It’s dark. It’s snowing. The roads are all white. And this is how close this person has come.
I let off the gas and start my horn. I don’t honk. I blare. Just let it ride.
The guy comes around to pass, and he honks back.
Oh, and just before we move on, he was in a 1989 Nissan Sentra. Yep. Google-search confirmed.
But the part that I want to talk about, what the fuck is with the honk back? How do you, as the person who is clearly the insane-o in this situation, have the guts to honk back?
The honk back, it’s one of the laziest insults. The honk, it’s like I said something about your mom. An insult that’s maybe a solid 6.5 out of 10. Then, your response is “No, YOUR mom is that!”
Someone needs to develop some secondary horns. Something that sounds a little more insulting, for starters. Outraged. Then, I would also like to campaign for an apology horn. I’ve fucked up before. I’m man enough to admit that I’ve gone at a two-way stop I thought was all-way. More than once. And I wouldn’t mind a little horn just to say, “You know what? That was my fault. But thanks for paying attention, and I’ll try to do better.”
I’m no musician. I’m not really sure what single tone can convey that. But it seems doable.