Mental Cobwebs

There is a bridge that I have to cross daily while working. It is the only bridge into and out of town, barring the one completely out of your way to the south, and the one completely out of your way to the north. It was in rough shape, so it is being completely replaced, which means each direction has been cut down to one lane and the two-lane road leading up to it merges into one lane just after the stoplight before the bridge.

This is, of course, clearly labeled. A good mile before the light is a giant light-up sign informing drivers of the impending merge just beyond the light. If I'm running a little bit late, the big factory in town changes shifts and traffic across the bridge becomes a slow crawl stretching through the light, but never that I've seen past that gigantic warning sign.

Yet, when there is a long line of traffic in the one lane, waiting to get across the bridge, there is inevitably an asshole every other minute that flies past everyone in the soon-to-close lane until they reach the construction barrels where they rudely shove their way into the line of traffic. You assume they must be in that lane to turn at the light until you see them fly right through it and the rage ensues. Allow me to provide an even better example of what complete pieces of shit these people are.

Have you ever been at a grocery store with only one lane open and a long line ahead of you? When you were in that line, did anyone walk straight past everyone in the line toward the closed checkout lane ahead, only to shove their way into the line of people waiting at the open one at the last possible second? NO! Of course they didn't, because if they did someone would probably punch them in the face!

A lot of people talk about trolls on the Internet being empowered by their anonymity, and I think it's the same exact thing when people are in their cars. They know that they are being raging assholes when they do stuff like that, but they're confident that no one is going to merge their car into the side of their SUV like they might with do with their fist into their face at the grocery store.

Do me a favor: don't be an asshole. I don't mean only when you're face-to-face with another human being, I mean all the time.