That’s Not Anger You’re Feeling

On the way home, something funny happened. Well, not really funny – annoying and anger-inducing. But after the fact, it got funny.

On the drive back to Chicago, we hit a patch where everyone on the highway needed to merge from two lanes into one. As it was a holiday weekend, you can imagine there were a lot of folks out.

As soon as I noticed the merge sign, I signaled to merge into the right lane. Truck horn goes off. I patiently wait a bit more and try to merge in again, truck horn goes off again.

The truck to my right absolutely refused to let me in. To the point where he blocked my access, rolled down his window, and wagged his finger towards the back of his vehicle in a “get behind me” way.

I’ve seen jerks drive all the way up in a merge, and try to get in at the last minute. So I understand this kind of protective behavior. But I was signaling long before the end, and pretty chill about the whole thing. So to experience this level of anger was quite surprising.

After being forced to merge behind Mr. Truck, I was pretty upset. But a few moments later, Liz and I started laughing about things. About what that must be like, for someone who’s so quick to get that angry.

We also talked a bit about how, for someone like that, the universe would catch up with him. That we felt (hoped?) he would ultimately receive some fitting repercussions tomorrow for his actions today.

While I was angry at the guy in the truck, I realized that my emotion could actually be something else. “That’s not anger you’re feeling,” I thought to myself – “that’s just your disappointment that you’re not going to be around to see the exact moment when the universe catches up to this guy.”

[photo via Rumman Amin]

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