Sunday, November 19, 2006

Now That's What I Call Stubborn

It's one o'clock on a rainy Sunday here in sleepy Seattle. I'm fresh from the shower and warm in my apartment content with spending the day watching movies and being lazy when I hear honking.

Not A honk. HonkING. Lots of it. Incessant, if you will.

My interest piqued, I peer out my bedroom window to see what the commotion is. There is a car stopped in front of my house, blocking the road and behind it sits a yellow station wagon. In it the honker is holding heavy down on the horn.

What's the problem here?

After a few minutes of observing the situation, it appeared that the car blocking the road was waiting for a parking space. The driver of the yellow wagon wanted to pass but there wasn't enough room. The driver of said blocking car decided to teach the wagon driver a lesson in patience and was refusing to move his car. He was just trying to park when the wagon driver gave him lip and then started the honking. Instead of backing up 5 feet to pass down an alley, the wagon driver decided it was better to annoy the entire neighborhood by leaning on the horn and refusing to take an alternate route. That will sure teach him! What a smart decision!

This went on for 20 minutes. Twenty minutes of a horn honking. Twenty minutes where neighbors from my apartment, the building next door and the church across the street came out to inquire what was going on and to each take their own approach with the stubborn, annoying driver. Yelling didn't work. Pleading didn't work. Even bringing a kid along for the negotiation didn't work. The horn still kept on blasting and the wagon driver, so annoyed at having to wait a few minutes for a person to park their car had now wasted twenty minutes of their time while pissing off the entire neighborhood.

Brilliant.

It wasn't until the sixth person to approach the driver came up to the window and said, "You lost the moral high ground 20 minutes ago. Why don't you just go?" that the driver finally edged past the blocking vehicle, bending back the guy's driver side mirror in the process, and took off down the street.

What is WITH people?!

17 comments:

Gary said...

I agree. At least he wasn't honking ar you. :)

By the way, I have read that Seattle has the politest drivers of any large city in America. Now I am wondering.

Sizzle said...

politest drivers? wow. i would NEVER have said that about the drivers here. unless the inability to merge is being confused with politeness. ;)

Mr. Rodacre said...

well, I sincerely hope the rest of your day is lazy and quiet...

Lazy and quiet is good...

Scarlet Hip said...

Asshats!

nicalyse said...

I'm convinced that 90% of the driving population should have their licenses revoked.

Bone said...

Last week when I was walking across the parking lot to check my mail, a guy came to a complete stop in the middle of the street, opened his door and yelled to the driver behind him, "Get off my ass!"

Obviously, that only served to encourage the alleged tailgater.

Brilliant, I tell ya.

Mrs. Ca said...

What a crappy way to have to spend twenty minutes. I wonder what crawled up that guy's ass that day, because he had to already have been in a bad mood to get that worked up.

Anonymous said...

Wow, what some people will do for a little attention.

Becky said...

Damn, I think that's where the eggs would've come out if that had been in my area.

Melissa said...

That guy would have been shot in my neighborhood. All my little old people neighbors don't take a lot of crap.

Sizzle said...

i'm about 90% sure the yellow wagon driver was a WOMAN with short hair and a very small dog in the back.

i should have broke out my binoculars!

egan said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
egan said...

Clearly the wagon driver isn't a Seattle native. Hearing a horn in Seattle is like a dry day in November, they just don't happen.

Anonymous said...

Well, if you compare Seattle drivers to Chicago drivers, I bet they win for politeness. Although it's not really a matter of being rude--it's like people here use horns to communicate. Honk!! Honk honk! Just because!
Serious props, though, to the person that told the guy he lost the moal high ground 20 minutes ago. F-ing brilliant.

Sizzle said...

wasn't it f-ing brilliant? i fell in love with him for a minute right there.

Unknown said...

geee - like the grown up version of the kid i had in class yesterday

my school has a cell phone policy - you can have them but they cannot be out or on (recipie for disaster i know) and if they are seen it is cause for immediate confiscation...

my classroom policy is if you hand it over w/o incident i will give it back at the end of class (unless it is a repeated offense)

if you ask for it back more than on during class (which is less than 45 minutes) or it is your 2nd offense, you get it at the end of the day....

or, if you throw a temper-tantrum, it goes to a principal....

well - this kid went one further and ended up making (hopefully) empty threats towards me, the principals, and the cops (who in our school are REAL - and yes they carry guns - in in our backwater school).... and instead of sitting there taking it - i hit the emergency buzzer

he is being charged w/ disorderly conduct

some people, no matter the age or sex, just HAVE to have it their way

outloud i stayed calm - in my head I too lost the moral ground - i thought "this ISNT burger king - you don't always get it your way"

egan said...

Paul, do you live in Seattle or is every Trader Joe's parking lot maddening?