Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Is today "Idiot Driver Day"?

I didn't really feel like going out today, but I was in danger of running out of toilet paper (one of three grocery items that I will make a trip for if I'm out, no matter what). So, I headed out and encountered the following morons:

1. As I got into my car in the parking lot, I saw a car sitting in front of one of the buildings near mine (about 4 doors away). As I pulled out of my parking space, it was still just sitting there. You can imagine my surprise when it came tearing around me on the road out of the parking lot (which, yes, only has one lane each way).

2. A guy in a pick-up truck made a right turn 10 feet in front of me, when he could have waited 2 seconds and would have had no traffic coming at all.

3. I was getting ready to make a right turn into the gas station for a car wash (I had prepaid for one a couple of weeks ago, and my code expires tomorrow). Opposing traffic had a green left-turn arrow, and a UPS truck was making the left, so I was waiting for him to turn before I turned. Then, an ambulance shows up behind me, lights on, sirens wailing. And the UPS truck just STOPS right in front of me, so that I can't get out of the way of the ambulance. I swear, the UPS driver just stared at the ambulance for about 10 seconds, and then very slowly finished his turn.

4. I managed to get to the store unscathed. This jackass in a parking spot on the end of one of the aisles decided to back out of his spot... directly into the main traffic lane in front of the store (cutting about 5 feet in front of my car). It gets better. He pulled over so close to the store that it looked like he was probably picking somebody up, and he stopped for a second, so I tried to go around him. At this point, he pulls back out into the flow of traffic, and I had to quickly turn down one of the aisles to avoid him sideswiping my car.

This all happened in about 10 minutes. I'm just glad that I've made it home safely in time for the funniest episode of TNG ever: "Night Terrors". I have Gatorade, I have Pepto-Bismol, I have more soup than I know what to do with... I'm all set for more TV and knitting this evening.

2 comments:

Theresa said...

Scary! People tend to either freeze or freak out when they hear the sirens. I was in an accident last fall when a woman drive into oncoming traffic (me) to get out of the way of a police car. She didn't look to see if maybe some cars were still moving.

Hope your tummy feels better soon!

Heather said...

Have you moved to my city? LOL
Seriously, people are crazy!!