Happy Fun Cog

I got flipped off while driving to work today. I haven't seen nearly as many middle fingers as you'd expect via the reputation of Boston drivers, though that coud due special circumstances like my avoidance of rush hour or the fact that I'm blind in both eyes.

I was making a right turn, trying to pull out of a parking lot and into a left turn lane, crossing a right turn lane in the process. A truck was coming from my left. The truck was not yet at the point where the road, previously a single lane in each direction, split into the aforementioned left and right turn lane. I judged the distance and decided to pull out. The truck was in front of me much more quickly than I anticipated, and I had to stop halfway through my turn, effectively blocking the right turn lane. The traffic light about 20 years down had turned red, freezing us in that position.

It wasn't clear to me exactly what had gone wrong until I looked in the driver's cab of the truck and saw the driver, an old black guy who had a flat face that reminded me of the black people that I saw while living in the South in that he looked like he'd come from a family of people who'd been in America for generations rather than a recent immigrant.

He was trying to make eye contact with me and when I finally looked at him he just stared at me. That in turn led me to believe that he was doing a stare-down, that he was making a point, that he had specifically blocked me from pulling out. Now this is something that I've seen a lot of in Boston. Many people here drive out of contempt for other people, changing speed or switching lanes just for the sake of blocking another driver.

When I realized that, I just rolled my eyes and looked away. I hate confrontation, especially in traffic. Either you're a psycho and you're going to get out of your car (which has also happened to me) or you're going to go on your way. Why dance around it? Go psycho or move on.

In any case, when my eyes drifted forward again, I saw the guy flipping me the bird; he was just putting down his hand as I looked back at him. When the light changed and traffic moved forward again, I saw that the truck was actually trying to turn right. This was the funniest/saddest/most infuriating part of the equation, which is that if the dummy had not tried to block me, he could've moved into the right turn lane and gotten to the traffic light in time to make the last few seconds of green.