What September 21st-22nd means to me: The Post Office And Assholes

I like to think I'm a pretty decent guy.  I always try to say "please" and "thank you."  I, more often than not, help friends in need, and am willing to be generous if I can be.  Ants and spiders?  Never fear when Brett is around.  I'll pick you up and take you outside instead of simply killing you (well, unless you were that humongous spider that landed on my head a couple of summers ago at my parents house.  I'm sorry that I killed you immediately, but you were the size of a baseball and ...

you made me do something like that across my mother's new kitchen floor.  But anyway, typically, if I am an asshole, I'm generally not a gaping one. 
But every so often I spread those cheeks wide, and well, it usually happens when I'm sitting behind the wheel of a car.  I'm not sure why I'm prone to road rage, but it probably has something to do with the fact that I feel the other person is summing up my entire existence based on one driving maneuver. Yesterday, while talking to my mother, some guy incessantly beeped me and flipped me off for...get this...following the rules.  Hey Jerkoff, just because there's no left turn on La Brea between 3 and 7 pm on weekdays, doesn't mean the rule also applies to whatever the hell the next street is.  And if you could fucking read, you'd see you can make a left turn after 6.  And if you took the time to look at the clock, you'd see it was 6:30.  But because he didn't, my mother was treated to a symphony of "fuck yous" directed at the other driver, though she did miss the histrionics of the whole display.  Luckily for her, and for you, here's actual footage from the street light cam:


                                                           


OK, I'm getting worked up again.  Calm down, Brett. Anyway, this incident, combined with my first visit to the post office in what seemed like forever, conjured the following memory; not one I'm all that proud of:

August 2006.  Getting your car stolen might not be the greatest tragedy in the world, but we can all agree that it's pretty annoying.  Combine this with unemployment and general malaise, and it's not exactly a recipe for a great mood.  But luckily for me, three weeks after the car was stolen, it was actually found.  In Monterey Park.  Outside a police station.  Hey, Tanisha Olliveri (I'll never forget her name), I've never driven a stolen vehicle, but if I did, I'd probably steer clear of, I dunno, police stations.  Oh yeah, and if you steal my current car, please fill it up with enough gas to cover, at least, 1/64,000th of the tank, so that when I pick it up from the impound lot, I'm not scared of running out of gas after moving seven feet.  Thanks in advance.

After an hour drive to Monterey Park, I dropped off my rental car, and was given a ride to the impound lot only to wait an additional hour to discover the car now had no airbag.  Naturally, my insurance company figured I stole my own airbag, but I can't blame them for this assumption.  After all, I am an upper-middle class Jew with no record, clearly a prime candidate for selling my airbag on the black market. Totally acceptable.  After more hassle, I went back to Enterprise, got a different rental car, and, about six hours after this whole ordeal started, returned home to a post-it on my mailbox informing me I had a package at the local post office.

So, again, it's not like I just found out I had cancer, but well, I was in a shit mood.  So, on the way to the post office, I cut off this California raisin of an old woman by accident.  Now, I was going MAYBE five miles an hour, but still, I immediately realized I did a bad thing, gave her the universal symbol of mea culpa, and I figured it was all good.
But clearly it wasn't because she actually followed me into the post office parking lot, and wasn't shy about pressing her horn 37495437854375934 (approx) times until we both parked. After exiting my car, the woman was so offended by my move, that she needed to tell me more about her near death experience.  I immediately said "that's my mistake, I'm sorry for that," but I don't think she could hear me over the "what's wrong with you's," why don't you watch where you're going's," and "hey asshole, what are you some kind of asshole, asshole's"  Again, I kept my cool.  It was a little old lady after all.  Perhaps she ran out of Ensure earlier in the day and was a bit cranky. 

But she must have seen her life pass before her while I cut her off at 5 miles an hour because she kept at me.  All the way into the post office.  Yelling, screaming.  I tried to tune her out because she was probably like 3 months from dying, but she was just getting plain nasty.  Finally fed up, I turned to her and said, "I got it.  I apologized, it was my fault, but you need to please stop."

And she did.  But not without her parting shot:

"Well, you need driving lessons!"  And she said this a little too loudly, I might add.

And for some reason ..

.

Oh yes, Khaleesi.  It was go time. 

All the stress I had from those past few days suddenly weighed heavily on my shoulders, and the only way I could release it was by saying ... "You need lessons on how to be less of a fucking cunt!"  And I said it a little too loudly, I might add:) I immediately regretted it and brought my hand to my mouth like I could shove the words back in. It was so loud that the collective post office conversation halted and 20 or so heads spun in my direction.  At least the old woman walked away and it was business as usual within seconds.  Perhaps this happens a lot in the company of the USPS. 

No closing thoughts really.  Just thought I'd share one of my "finer" moments.