Doosh or Doosh not. There is no try.

This morning, driving the kids to school I experienced reverse road rage. Ok, maybe not so much road rage as jerk behavior.

Follow along as I reenact the events of this morning.

Driving along the road, there is a car in front of me. We were both in the left lane. I change lanes into the right lane because I was getting ready to exit. The car that was in front of me in the left lane, swerves into the right lane cutting me off. No signal from the car to alert me of his change in direction. I of course stepped on the brake to avoid hitting him.

We proceed to exit and then he swerves back into the left lane, cutting off the person in the left lane. As I exit, I look over to this person to see who was making idiotic moves and what do I see? A person giving me the finger. Proudly waving it in fact.

Break for discussion: What kind of person do you think was driving erratically and then throwing the bird? A woman driver putting on makeup? A teenager being a punk teenager. A man picking his nose and looking at his treasure?

Would you believe it was an elderly man? He had to have been at least 70, waving the bird in front of his elderly wife's face. This man was giving me the finger because he couldn't figure out where he was going.  He got mad at me, because he almost caused me to hit him. How's that for irony?

I did not make any faces at him, no hand gestures to show my frustration and certainly no vocal diatribes with sprinklings of profanity to convey my level of irritation at this person. I had my boys in the back and they see and hear everything. Even with Hotel Transylvania blasting away, if I said one "shit" under my breath, they would tell me that was a bad word and proceed to repeat it to everyone at school and their grandmother that I said shit.

Instead of being mad, this got me to contemplating jerk behavior. (It's a long drive in traffic to my office) Was this man always a jerk, from the time he was an infant? Or was he a model citizen before some OTHER crazy driver did him wrong? Is it once a jerk always a jerk? Or can a jerk be reformed? Do we really become more crotchety as we get older?  (If that is the case, there is no hope for me)
And most importantly, why is it that people who act like complete a-holes blame the other party? 

So the next time someone wants to give me the flying bird, I'm going to smile and say "here's your sign."

Yep, that'll show 'em.