My Least Favorite Species

I just returned from a quick supermarket run to pick up stuff for dinner. The market is four miles from my house. The road I take is a two-laner--one in each direction--that branches out with an extra lane as it reaches the entrance to the highway. In winter there's hardly another car in sight, but today, it being a Friday in summer, there was plenty of traffic.

Suddenly the car in front of me stopped. Completely. I stepped on my brake hard to avoid a fender bender as the car behind me honked angrily.  Throwing my arms up in a shrug, I said to myself, since I was alone,"what's going on here?" The stopped car ahead of me finally moved forward, inching into the next lane in order to make a right turn at the next corner. Oh, so that's it, I thought. As I passed the woman driver, we made eye contact and she gave me the finger! Okay, so having someone hold their middle finger in the air in your direction is not exactly painful, but still, it's a sting, especially when it's undeserved.

Why is it that when people are in the wrong and you call them on it, they turn it around and make you the bad guy? When they're talking too loudly in the movies and you politely ask them to quiet down, they say, "Fuck you, asshole." When their kids are screaming in a restaurant and you rightly  complain, they say, "Shut the fuck up, moron."

People....they're the worst.