One Pet Peeve Post. Just one.

   
This is the one time I’m going to pick a pet peeve and expect you to care when I rant about it.  This one’s a big one, and many many folks are hypocrites about it.  If you are one of those people that just hates it when your fellow drivers are talking on the phone, then make sure you never talk on the phone while you’re driving.  I don’t.  Why should I?  It’s always noisy in my head anyway, and I have to deal with tidying my apartment and fixing something for dinner and figuring out the next day’s game plan when I get home, so why in the sam hell do I need to discuss all of those things with various and sundry people on my way?  What is so ferociously important?  Nothing, that’s what.  

The guy that ran a red light today and turned right directly in front of me, causing me to lock up my brakes and swerve a bit, was probably telling his wife that he would like two olives in his martini when he gets home, please.  The girl eating ice cream and going 4 mph on Gough was probably extolling the virtues of butter pecan.  The dude with the earpiece that cut me off in the middle of the Broadway tunnel was probably talking up his buddy about the hot new girl (or boy) in accounting and wondering if she (or he) is the type to put out on the first date.
 

And don’t get me started on people who think they can text while they drive and still maintain a modicum of safety.  You can’t.  I don’t care what you say, you cannot.  Driving, especially within the confines of San Francisco, is a full-on interactive experience.  People are pulling over, not using their blinkers (DAMN those people), veering across three lanes of traffic because they didn’t read the No Left Turn sign, and that’s not even mentioning the hara-kiri-committing pedestrians that also go retarded when they get on the phone.  The incessant desire to be connected to people is not only degrading our language via text message, but it’s creating a nation of people who think their hand-eye coordination is secondary to their ability to keep their foot on the gas pedal.  I’m not looking out for those people anymore.  I’m going to be a chatty driver’s worst nightmare.  I’ll lay on my horn, I’ll tailgate, I’ll “flex” on ‘em, as the kids say.  Because I can’t take it anymore.  So watch out for my Toyota.  I’ll be the one actually looking at the road.