road rage

We went into the city yesterday to do two small quick little jobs. The two of them took about four hours and the people came and picked them up all on the same day and we packed up to skedaddle back home. Then I remembered that I needed to find some previous art work for the full size drawing I have to do this week before we head back next week to do that job so it took me about half an hour to rummage through years of drawings until I found the one I wanted.

Of course, that put us leaving at rush hour but it's really not so bad as we get on the HOV lane and generally whiz right by the main lanes. Until we get to the Brazos River that is.

The HOV lane peters out, dumping us into the far left lane and before we get to the bridge over the river, the 5 lane highway narrows down to two lanes. We merge into what then becomes the left lane, cross the river and continue on our way.

There are two entrances onto the highway after the river and before the exit for Rosenburg/Richmond, two towns that have merged and will soon be butted up to Sugar Land (so named because there used to be a big sugar factory there) which used to be a small town until it became a chichi suburb of Houston.

Once past Rosenburg, it's another 30 minutes to home in Wharton.

So we are in the left lane, going faster than the traffic in the right lane, which is pretty full because of the merging from the two entrance ramps and because a lot of commuters exit there at Rosenburg, maintaining our speed when this guy in a white pick-up truck comes up behind us, tailgating us, and gesturing for us to move over, move over into the slow lane where there was another truck next to us.

Since we are still moving faster than the traffic on the right and moving as fast as the traffic in front of us, we stay put. When a gap opens up, he whips in, sticks his head out his window yelling and cursing at us as he passes, and then whips back right in front of us in the left lane and hits his brake.

He's angrily waving his arm out the window and finally lifts it up in the international gesture of 'fuck you', hits the gas, passes a couple of cars on the right and then moves into the right hand lane and about a half mile later he slows to a crawl joining the long line of cars exiting for Rosenburg and it's his exit. Because of the light there, and the time of day, he is barely off the highway when we pass him honking and waving.

The guy had a freaking peace sign on his rear windshield.

OK. Maybe he had a hard day and just wanted to get home, I get that. But really, what was the point of all that anger and childishness when his exit was a half mile down the road and our getting out of his way, even if we could have, would have made zero difference.