One of the most stressful parts of being a mom in Los Angeles is having to deal with all of the nutty drivers as you schlep your kids around town. I find Los Angeles drivers, particularly those traveling west of La Cienega, to be the most obnoxious, inconsiderate group of people I have ever encountered. The roads are saturated with overwrought women driving with the intensity of Emergency Rescue Workers, desperate to make their Brazilian bikini waxing appointments and yoga classes before the meditation starts, and I am not just talking about myself! It is always a pleasure to be flipped off by an ego-maniacal schmuck because I had the audacity to cross the street while pushing a baby stroller.

I recently was driving my daughter to school and was waiting to make a left turn at a green light on the corner of Bundy. I made the grave mistake of blinking my eyes as the light turned from green to yellow. The driver behind me instantly honked his horn so vehemently that my body actually jolted. As I made the left turn, I noticed the driver was a typical west-side man, an urban jackass who looked like he was ready to have a coronary because he almost missed the light.

I continued driving on my path, and saw that he was trailing me. “Wouldn’t it be funny” I thought “If he was also dropping his child off at the same school? I bet he would feel like a real dumb-shit for honking at me like that.” As I pulled up at the school, I had to again make another left turn and was waiting for the on-coming traffic to clear. Lo and behold, he was still behind me, and I was giddily anticipating an embarrassed apology from him as we dropped off our children.

The on-coming traffic was heavy and I was having to wait a while to make my turn. He began to honk at me again- loud, blaring, successive honks, while making borderline-obscene gestures. This couldn’t really be happening. Even though we didn’t know each other, we both had children at the same school and we were both part of the same community. Where was his shame, or self-restraint for that matter? And why the hell was he honking for me to make a left turn when there was oncoming traffic? Was he really encouraging me to potentially get into a car crash and endanger my child’s life so he could drop his child off at school?

I was fuming as I made the turn and pulled into the drop-off line. I am no stranger to navigating the dog-eat-dog streets of Los Angeles, but it wasn’t even 8am yet and I certainly wasn’t caffeinated enough to deal with this prick. But, I had an extra boost of courage that morning because I had actually changed out of my pajamas and into a decent-looking outfit to drive my daughter to school (this was a rarity) and my hair was freshly blow dried. I knew I looked cute and I decided to go to war.

I marched right up to his window and asked him, “What the hell is your problem? Why were you honking at me like a maniac?”

He was still all red in the face as he bellowed, “You fell asleep at Bundy!” referring to the fact that I had waited an extra milli-second to make the initial left turn at Bundy when I accidentally blinked my eyes. Ironically, we both made the light, so my transgression did not affect his final arrival time in any way.

I saw how agitated he looked and realized he was completely unbalanced. I subconsciously went into “clinical therapist mode” and talked to him like he was a deranged client. “Sir,” I said calmly, “I blinked by mistake. I am sorry for that, but you still made the light. What is really going on?”

“And then” he continued on his rampage as if he didn’t hear me,”You weren’t making the turn again to get into the lot. I am trying to get my child to school on time!”

His sense of entitlement was astonishing. All my clinical training went down the toilet. It was time to talk turkey to this narcissistic fool. “We were both trying to get our children to school on time. I was waiting for it to be safe to make the turn. This isn’t a life or death issue, you freak!” I stomped off, got into my car, and sped away, pumped on adrenaline and self-righteous rage.

I gave this incident some obsessive thought throughout the day and kept ruminating on his explosive over-reaction. Didn’t he care that our children went to the same school, and why couldn’t he control his rage for the sake of his child? Or was my crime of not turning quickly enough so egregious that his response was warranted?  Most people are only brazen enough to act out their Road Rage when the recipient is a nameless, faceless victim. I, for one, abruptly stopped unleashing my anger on other drivers when I began to work in a leadership role in the Jewish community. I was in terror that I would accidentally flip off a board member or donor one day, and my career would be over.

What the hell was his rush, anyway? At what cost are we willing to get to our important destination? At the cost of alienating someone in our community and frightening our children? At the cost of causing an accident by intimidating another driver to make an unsafe turn?

I consider my own driving and the times when I am most likely to act out my primal rage. It is often because I am running late and stressed out. Instead of taking responsibility for my inability to appropriately budget enough travel time, I project my anger onto the innocent drivers who are unfortunate enough to be in my path. It is so easy to take their benign actions personally, as if they are obeying the speed limit for the sole purpose of making me late. It takes serious self-restraint in those moments to take a deep breath and try to get some perspective.

Driving is a necessary evil for those of us who reside in LA. It is in those moments of perceived anonymity when our character is most revealed. It is easy to act courteously towards others when we have an audience, but how we behave when we think no one is watching us must count for something, too. And it certainly counts for our children, who are learning how to respond to the world based on our example.

That “narcissistic fool” can be my teacher- a glaring reminder that my words and actions do not exist in a bubble. Just get out of my freaking way when I am running late for yoga!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 11:56 am and is filed under 1. Angst Mom Essays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.