Another entry for my “People Are Assholes” file.

Note to drivers passing through unfamiliar residential neighborhoods because you’re impatient and in a hurry and you’ve gotten yourselves lost because you’re impatient and in a hurry, even if the reason for you being in a hurry and lost is through no real fault of your own:WheatonsLaw

Yes, Wheaton’s Law is appropriate even in this circumstance.

Here’s how it went down:

There was a wreck on the highway south of my house this morning. It ended up being west of me, too, near a major interchange where three different highways converge, but the backup was such that it spilled back to the east by several miles, and people were leaving the highway and taking to surface streets and attempting to get past the scene. A lot of these folks likely didn’t know where the wreck was, or even where they were, as they ended up driving through my neighborhood in a vain hope of regaining the highway.

My neighborhood is such that we’re several blocks from main arteries, and the only real traffic we typically see is from residents and their visitors as well as the usual assortment of delivery vehicles, etc. Anybody who’s “not from around here” sticks out pretty quickly, and that’s even before they come tear-assing down my street at 50 miles an hour.

I had just come home from dropping the kids at school and was walking out to the mailbox when one such car came screaming around the corner and down the street, heading for the only option he was about to have: A sharp turn to the right. Seeing me, he slams on his brakes and lowers his window, and in the finest tradition of human interaction ever recorded, greets me thusly:

Hey! How the hell do I get the fuck out of here?

I actually stood there, purposely silent, eyeing him for several seconds with an expression I hoped conveyed my unspoken question: “Are you fucking kidding me?

Frustrated at my lack of response, he drove off, around the bend and through the stop sign up the street. That actually was a bad move for him, as it ended up putting him in the position of having to make a left at another stop sign onto the main road north of my neighborhood, and into the long line of traffic from other drivers who had escaped the clogged highway and were looking for an alternate route.

That’s when I started laughing.


So, hey! Don’t be one.

3 thoughts on “Another entry for my “People Are Assholes” file.

  1. That goes on the list of epic responses that simply can’t be scripted better. The only one I’ve enjoyed involved a pair of Mormon ‘Elders’ walking through the neighborhood, knocking on doors and speaking to whomever didn’t have enough moxie to send them on their way. I was doing yardwork, and could see them out of the corner of my eye. As they approached, I stood and, without facing them, said, “You gentlemen can just keep on walking.” They stutter-stepped, and hurried away. I felt like a giant asshole, but I was totally okay with that.


    1. I have this compulsive need to fuck with people who act like they’re better than everyone around them, or that the world revolves around them. That goes double when they start in on me like I’m “the help” or something.

      Character flaw, I know. 🙂


  2. Gotta love it. Where I used to in the Capitol (CT), we would always be able to tell who wasn’t from around the area ’cause the second they got off the highway (which if there was a bad accident, the police would redirect traffic through the city until people could pick up the highway further south) they looked just like the drive you’ve mentioned.

    It’s sad, but if you’re a daily commuter on the highway, it would make a heckuva lot of sense to learn the area around your daily route, so that you don’t act lick a schmuck should you have to get off the highway.


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