Scarey Circumstances

I had something really scary happen to me yesterday.

When I first started driving I was pretty scared of trucks. I'm not talking pickups or even moving van size trucks. I mean the big obnoxious 18 wheeler size trucks. After a few years of driving experience though I decided that they weren't too bad. In fact at times I would see them as downright friendly and harmless. Yes, at first they seemed to me like the cows of the driving world. You know always going slower than the cars (at least the ones that are trying to come off as law-abiding . Yeah, I just thought of them as just big lumbering giants that just wanted to go about their business.

That was at FIRST.

After a few more years I noticed that at times those "cows" would act more like Bulls.

Yes I used to see trucks as slightly menacing.

That was until YESTERDAY!!!!!!

Yesterday was Thursday. And what does devoted daughter Susan do on Thursdays you may ask? Susan takes her Dear Old, Lives in a Retirement Home, Has dialysis three times a week, Mother, out for An afternoon of lunch and a bit of shopping.My Mom really appreciates and looks forward to this every week.

I try to not disappoint her, although sometimes I do have to cancel.

Well yesterday I took her out. And as an even bigger treat, I talked Courtney into coming along.

Mom LOVES Courtney.

We had a very nice time. Mom had to go to Target and exchange something. That turned out quite nicely. Meaning that they had what she needed. After that little bit of shopping we did what always comes next, which is to go have lunch. Mom and Courtney both voted for Red Lobster. I decided that Red Lobster didn't sound too bad so that's where we went. Red Lobster turned out just fine too.

So far So good.

Mom and I both wanted to go to Fred Meyer. They have raspberries and blackberries for 7.88 for a third of a flat. So off we went to Fred Meyer. Good, Good, so far everything is just another Thursday out. ( That BTW was a little bit of for-shadowing in case you didn't realize)

Alright, shopping done. Check. Lunch eaten and enjoyed. Check. More shopping done. Triple Check.

It is now time to take mom back to the good o' Tri-Cities Retirement Home.

I head up 10th to Highway 395. There seems to be road work ahead. The kind of road work that insists that you are soon going to be expected to all merge together into a single lane. In this case it was the right lane people needing to merge into the left lane.

Now this is what really pisses (sorry Dani) me off about this.

The people needing to merge left will go as far in the right lane as they possibly can. When they get to the final merging opportunity they suddenly feel that it is their right for every one that followed the rules and merged as soon as possible to let them in ahead.

I HATE that.

I try to be a good citizen. Especially if I have my mom in the car with me. I merged over to the left almost immediately. And from that point I allowed several people to cut in front of me. These are the good decent people like me that aren't trying to speed up through the right lane and then cut everyone else off.

SIDETRACK:

Here is something that really torks me off. Ya know when you are nice and let someone who needs to get into your lane get in front of you? Well I'm sure you know the proper protocol. You let the needy person in, that's you being nice. They wave to show their appreciation. That's them showing their gratitude.

That is how it is done! It's a GOOD system!

But for some reason there is a certain type of man who just will not play by the rules. I have noticed that it is usually older men. Now I have put some thought into this. I know that there are a lot of Men-of-a-certain-Age, who will not treat a woman as an equal if their stupid lives depended on it. And these are the type of men (in my opinion of course) who will NOT wave to a woman when she lets them in.

This really ANGERS me!

Okay back to my story.

As luck would have it the first person I let cut in front of me is an old man in a light blue, smallish, Toyota Pick-up truck. At first he won't even take it. Even though I have slowed down to the point that there is at least a three car space in front of me. Also, the idiot had his turn signal on. Pretty obvious that he wanted in. I just don't think he wanted in so quickly. It was pretty obvious that he was hoping to get a little closer to the front of the line. JERK. But he finally noticed the big space I gave him. He took it but he did NOT give me a wave.

BIG JERK!

I let in three more people. They all waved.

Slightly behind me, I saw a BIG truck. A big 18 wheeler truck. I decided to be super nice and even give him a break, even though I HATE being behind those big semi's. Did he take it? No he did NOT. He just kept passing up us good citizens who were obediently in the left lane. It made me sort of mad but I thought oh well, his problem if he gets up there and can't pull in.

Well it was no problem for him at all. He simply got up there and forced his way in. I wasn't close enough to see too well but I'm sure he left a few drivers pretty shaken.

JERK!!!!!

As luck would have it I ended up ahead of him after the next light at the next intersection. We drove on. I thought we were done put here came another need to merge yet again to the left. Again I let a couple of people pull in front of me. They were wavers. That was nice. I was about two or three car lengths ahead of the stupid big truck, and there was no way I was going to give him a chance to cut in this time. Plus there was no one behind him so it was no big deal for him to merge left.

Am I making this clear? Sometime these kinds of things can be a little difficult to picture what the writer means, so I hope you are still with me.

So here I am driving towards the upcoming Blue Bridge. Everything is swell. Oh no what is this? The big truck is almost up to me. The lane to the left of me has got maybe ten to fifteen feet before it ceases to exist. This nasty truck driver has got on his left turn signal. He actually is arrogant enough to think he can bully his way in front of me.

I know I should have backed down. I know that playing chicken with a ten ton vehicle is really a stupid to do.

Yes I do KNOW that.

I was just so mad that this jerk who wouldn't merge in front of me when I was willing to let him earlier, was now trying to force his way in. I stepped down on the gas and kept going.

So did HE!!!

That A_ S - H_ LE was pushing me into oncoming traffic! I could not believe it! He was trying to push us into the oncoming traffic. We would have been killed, seeing as how the oncoming traffic was going pretty close to 50 miles an hour. I had to slam on my brakes. And unbelievably this SUV that had by now come up behind the Semi also had no intention of letting me in. They were also trying to force me into the ONCOMING TRAFFIC!!!!

I cannot believe that these people could be so evil.

I stomped on the gas and just managed to pull in front of the SUV. This was just moments before me having a head on collision with another SUV that was coming right at me. At least that guy was trying to swerve and slow down. At least he was decent.

I was so MAD!!!!

So what did I do? I managed to dig out some paper and a pen and give them to my mom and told her to write down the trucks license plate. I also looked for the call- this -800- number -if this -driver- does -anything -stupid, number. Of course there was no number like this any where on the back of the truck.

So what did I do next? I did what any sensible person would do. I went for my cell phone and dialed 911. My mom pointed out to me, that I was not suppose to be on my phone while driving.

I didn't care.

As far as I am concerned some evil truck driver trying to kill me and my passengers is a slightly bigger offense than calling 911 while driving. They asked what my emergency was. I explained as best I could what the truck driver had just done. That was a little bit hard seeing as I was shaking like crazy. 911 informed me that I needed to talk to Highway Patrol.

They transferred me.

The 911 operator gave a brief explanation of what I had called for, then she turned it over to me. I suddenly realized that I should have said I was a passenger instead of the driver. But I was too shaken to be thinking that clearly. By this time I was right behind the Semi. We were just starting to get onto the Blue Bridge. I was trying to give the State Patrol person as accurate of a version of what happened as I could. They wanted to know where the truck was now. I told him that he was right in front of me. I had my mom tell me the guys license number so I could give it to the State Patrol guy. I told him what direction the guy was headed. I was told that they would see what they could do about it and then told me I could hang up.

Somehow, I got the impression that the State Patrol wasn't all that interested in pursuing this guy. I took the 20th street exit to take my mom home. I was still shaking. I still just could not believe what that truck driver had just done to me. The only bright spot was that no one that I had talked to on the phone had said anything about me being on my cell phone. I think that if they had I would have completely lost it.

Well I got my mom home safely. Courtney helped her get her stuff on her walker. We told her goodbye. She told us goodbye.

We headed for home.

We made it home without incident.

Thank Goodness.

I think I have just lost a little bit of faith in my fellow human beings. It was bad enough for the truck driver to do what he did, but the guy behind him in the SUV would rather have pushed me into oncoming traffic than have to take his rightful place behind me.

I guess I need to hear good things. I need to be assured that people are good, because at this moment I have lost some of my faith in the basic goodness of people.

Hopefully this will fade in a few days and it will just be a sad memory. I hope so. If I can let it fade away I know I will be happier and will feel better about people in general. I also know that I was protected by my Heavenly Father. And that really means a lot to me. So I guess I will have to work on putting this behind me and move on. I promise to try. And next Thursday I will take my mom out and we will have a nice time and everything will be good.

Thanks for letting me vent.