driving me crazy

I'm turning into a New Yorker. Meaning, I'm becoming mean.

There was a time when I signalled before changing lanes. A time when being inches away from a car made me nervous. When I wouldn't think of cutting someone off, of tapping a bumper to parallel park, of backing halfway down a block to nab a parking spot...of honking.

But those days are no more. I've honked more today than I have in my entire life. It's almost impossible to get anywhere (or find a parking spot!) in the city unless you drive recklessly. In fact, it seems that if you drive "properly" - that's reckless. Because everyone else drives so aggressively that being proper is asking for an accident.

It doesn't help that I'm driving a boat. A freaking Ford Taurus station wagon. I'm convinced that Fords (all American cars, in fact) are terrible. But a station wagon, no less - that thing has such a big butt, finding spots becomes 10x harder!

In my last day with the company car, I made a failed attempt to get to Ikea. I didn't even make it from Queens to Manhattan before that was aborted. Well more like...I messed up on following mapquest, found myself on the Queensboro Bridge, and was stuck wading across midtown. In my BOAT. By the time I made it across, over an hour had gone by and I had no patience left to be venturing out to Jersey.

Haha, there is nothing like having to drive in NYC to realize that patience and self-control are...difficult. Haha. It's like in the Bible when it says to turn the other cheek...when you're driving, if someone cuts you off on the right, you shouldn't be angry if immediately thereafter someone else cuts you off on the left. Well, because if they both do that, they'll crash into each other. Serves them right! Haha OK just kidding, that's terrible...but these mean people keep cutting me off!!

I think the end result is that I've become way more of an aggressive driver than I really thought I could be. You have to cut people off to prevent them from cutting you off...or else you'll never get anywhere you need to go.

It's kind of like how when someone keeps doing a cut kick on you, you just have to badachagi their butt. It's not nice. But you have to make them put their leg down, give you a little respect, and fight "properly". And some people won't do that unless you give them a reason to. It's not like I'm doing it to be mean. I'm just shutting down your tactics and side games and making you fight.

Like my first coach always said (not that I understood it when I was 13)..."every offense is a defense, every defense is an offense..."