Out of Practice

For as much of a Masshole as I am when behind the wheel, I rarely honk at other cars on the road. I think it has to do with the fact that I hate being honked at. There is something about being honked at that makes me feel like the other driver is trying to scold me or something, which really gets under my skin. And since I hate it so much I'm certainly not about to do it to someone else. Usually I just start talking to no one in particular (and if my car is empty, no one else at all) about what a jack-off the other driver is. Another reason I don't honk is that I feel like honking is really ineffective because some people use it as a way to simply get another driver's attention. That means half the time instead of giving you the little 'sorry' wave that you so desperately want, the other driver is just going to start looking around at what you might want them to know about (after all, this is Massachusetts - there is almost no chance the other driver even knows they just cut you off). Plus, today's horns all sound pretty lame, like a quick little "beep". They sound more cute than angry. Unless you have the air horn from an 18-wheeler under your hood, all you are doing is letting everyone else know exactly how wimpy your horn is. That's why I save my honking for a major violation.

The problem is that because of my lack of honking, I'm out of practice when someone does something that is bad enough for me to actually feel compelled to honk at them. The other day I was leaving a parking garage, heading back onto the street where you had to go either left or right and at this exit there were three lanes of traffic. The left lane was left-turn only, the center was left or right turn and the right was, you guessed it, a right-turn only lane. Since I knew I needed to eventually be in the right lane after taking a left turn, I was in the center lane. The issue arose because the woman in the Jeep to the left of me took a very wide left turn and drifted into my lane without even looking in my direction. If I hadn't slammed on my brakes she would have sideswiped me. I was really pissed at her stupidity and punched my hand into the center of my steering wheel to let her hear just how annoyed at her I was. Except that because of the airbag, the horn isn't in the center of my steering wheel. Instead you are supposed to push an area on either side of the airbag, as shown by a couple of little horns. So, now I had to look down, locate them and then push my horn, which took about 10 seconds. You want to talk about a delayed reaction. It felt like it took so long that I almost didn't bother to honk at her. It was as if I was saying, "Yeah, lady, what you did a minute ago was really annoying at the time." This is why I don't honk.

-I haven't sat down and fully invested in the baseball playoffs yet (and, truth be told, I probably won't). But, as I was flipping passed the game the other day, I came up with a new theory as to why I never got into baseball as deeply as I have in other sports: I don't enjoy spitting enough. Seriously, everyone is just constantly spitting during a baseball game. Have you ever seen the floor of a dugout immediately after a major league game ends? It might be the most disgusting place on Earth at that given moment. The other night there was an injury serious enough for the trainer to come out (the guy probably had to run 90 feet or something) and even the trainer was constantly spitting while checking out the player's ankle. I wouldn't consider myself to be a master of etiquette, but even I find this excessive. I understand that excess saliva comes with playing sports at any level, but if you think about it, no other sport has guys who spit nearly to the degree of baseball players. This is especially ironic because baseball players probably have the most downtime of any professional athlete. They could very easily find a trash can or container to spit their sunflower seeds into. And I assume these guys don't spit this much once they get away from the stadium, so they could probably control themselves if they wanted to. When even I think an activity is gross that should tell you something.