An odd experience on the way to work this morning. I was driving down the street that I live on to the first major intersection when the car in front of me, a green Mitsubishi, stopped and put their left signal on. Although they were in the left turn lane they had stopped about fifty feet short of the light. I noticed there was a driveway on the left and figured that’s where the Mitsubishi was going to turn as soon as traffic coming the other way had stopped. I was too close to his bumper to pull around him, and it would only have brought me to the red light, so I just waited for him to turn. I’m never in much of a hurry on the way to work.

As I waited for oncoming traffic to clear and the Mitsubishi to make a left into the driveway, a bright blue truck sped around my car and the one in front of me, tires squealing as he cut around the cars, clearing my bumper by about six inches and coming to a screeching stop at the light. It was such aggressive driving, that it must have been an attempt to communicate a message, although I couldn’t figure out quite what that message was. Maybe he disapproved of the Mitsubishi’s left turn, or he was just in a huge hurry.

The cars coming the other direction cleared and the Mitsubishi went left into the driveway. I pulled forward, ending up right behind the blue truck as the light turned green. At the next light, he came to another sudden stop in the lane going straight and then suddenly pulled to the right to get onto the street that goes towards the highway. It turned out we were following roughly the same route to the freeway, although his route involved weaving dangerously in and out of traffic, stopping in one lane and then suddenly accelerating into the other. Although I was hanging back, wanting to avoid any of the mayhem, we still kept about the same pace and I ended up on the freeway only a few cars behind the blue truck. Apparently extremely aggressive driving doesn’t actually make traffic go any faster.

When I took the exit from the freeway at work and pulled in the left turn lane to stop for coffee I found myself behind the blue truck again. This time I could see the driver better. It was a guy (surprise) with a shaved head, it looked like he was wearing a sweatshirt. He didn’t appear to be talking on the phone or doing anything that gave an indication about why he was apparently filled with rage. I couldn’t figure out where he was going. The only business open in the area was the coffee shop where I was headed for my morning java. Apart from that, there is a Hilton (maybe he was going to bust his wife in a hotel room with Gavin Newsom?) and residential areas. The truck was kind of construction-y so I thought maybe he was late to get to a job site. Or maybe he’s a plumber and was going to fix a burst pipe.

When he pulled into the parking lot of the coffee shop, I got a little concerned. For the first time, I wondered if there was going to be a problem. What if he had noticed my car behind him and thought I was following him? I sat in my car for a moment, and watched him go into the coffee shop. As he went in, he glanced back right at my car. “Great,” I thought, “He probably thinks I’m going to come in there and lecture him about his driving and he’s ready to go apeshit on me.” Although I had thought of a few sarcastic comments for the crazy driver as I watched him almost cause about a half dozen accidents, I know better than to confront angry drivers… having been one myself. But nothing gets between me and caffeine so I got out, too, and walked over. I noticed he was standing near the door, looking through the cards. As I got closer to the door, he looked up and over at me. I was surprised to see that he actually had a quite pleasant face. The kind of person you’d pass on the street and say “good morning” to. As I pulled the door open, he froze with his hand on the cards. At this point I realized he had recognized my car and he thought I was following him. He didn’t look like the near occasion of apeshit. In fact, he looked kind of wary.

I picked a good day to be girly. Maybe I would have looked more like the kind of person who would yell at a stranger if I’d been wearing a pantsuit with my hair pulled back and glasses. But this is Friday and I was feeling pretty girly this morning, so I wore a short skirt, black platform sandals, did my hair and makeup and topped it all off with a short pink trenchcoat. I think it’s safe to say that he was a little surprised. So I did what I always do when I think that the shit’s about to hit the fan. I opened the door, make eye contact, gave him my biggest smile and said, “Hi!” Hand still planted on the card rack, he smiled, too and said, “Hi…” He appeared to actually be bracing himself on the rack of cards. I breezed past and got my coffee. At one point I realized he had ordered coffee too and was behind me at the coffee “stuff” table. I left without saying anything else and waited in my car for him to leave the parking lot. Maybe it was my imagination, but I would swear he was driving a little slower.