20th
Nice Fucking Work
A few years ago, in an attempt to calm my road rage, I traded giving the finger for a sarcastic thumbs up. I only ever felt like an idiot anyway when I would flip the bird — angry people always look worse than the person who angered them, it’s an unfortunate truth. A cool thumbs up says, “Way to go, Jack Ass. You didn’t make me angry, no, I’m simply NOTING your stupidity.” Which seemed better, until tonight when the DOUCHE BAG parked on the red curb in front of Rite Aid, blocking the entire lane, forcing me to wait for not three, not four, but FIVE oncoming cars to pass before going around, self-righteous thumb already poised, my expression saying “Nice fucking work,” turned out to be… a tiny, sweet looking old lady. As I left the parking lot I could picture it — she wasn’t feeling well, not at all, and her tiny old husband took her to the doctor. They both had trouble walking and then sitting in plastic chairs. She reached into her purse, fished a bit of used kleenex from between a lipstick and a package of lifesavers, and blew her sore, red nose. Her husband, blurry-eyed, patted her shoulder. Finally the doctor saw her. He was short and impatient, she was kind and apologetic. After making her wait an hour, he prescribed some antibiotics in under two minutes. By the time they got to Rite Aid it was dark and they had not eaten supper. “I don’t feel well enough to go in,” she told her husband. “I’ll get your prescription,” he told her kindly, pulling up to the red curb and getting, with difficulty, out of the car before hobbling on an artificial hip into the store. There she sat, alone in the car, the blur of commuters on Glendale Boulevard in front of her, thinking of times when a silly thing like a head cold wasn’t such an ordeal. Her head hurt and she was hungry and trying to think what she might have in the kitchen to make. Then I drove by. Man, sometimes I hate myself.
