Old Age Road Rage

Posted on March 6, 2004 in Driving The Orange

I pulled up behind the creme-colored, old style, I’m-so-big-you-have-to-park-me-in-the-Great-Plains Cadillac at the corner of Aliso Creek and El Toro. The monster sat there while the wind blew up Laguna Canyon from the ocean. I looked to the left to see if there was any reason for the elegant proto-Hummer to not take advantage of our pioneering Right-Turn-on-Red law. I saw only darkness.

She did not move. Fearful that one of the last mad artists living in Laguna Beach would howl and screech out of her narrow peripheral vision, she waited for the safety of the all-protecting Green Light. I honked, once. She did not budge. The light changed, she turned, I turned, and I went around her. Then the road rage began.

At every light that stopped me, she hobbled up next to me, as if to taunt “What’s your rush, mister? You got here at the same time as me.” I went through two lights like this, deftly ignoring her denture smile. At Moulton, having had enough of the dusty torture, I swerved to the left so that there would be a buffer of cars between us.

A creaky gust buffeted me from the right. She’d pulled into the left turn lane. I saw her lift her nose haughtily; the sweep and fading of her tail light apprised me that I was free of her.

Nevertheless, I watched every intersection in Laguna Woods just in case she’d circled around for another attack on my dignity.