It May Be Tourette’s

I’ve become so fixated on just the one bit of major, upcoming life-changing news-worthiness that I truly can’t think of much else. So, if I become insanely boring for – oh – say – LESS THAN THREE MORE WEEKS… then, well, you can always just check email.

But let’s back up a minute to that word “insanely”… route word: insane… right there before “boring”. I’ve given a lot of thought to the idea this new child might be cuckoo. You just never know. She will be female, after all. And let’s all face it – women are known to have a certain bit of drama attached to our nature to varying degrees. So, when I tell you about what happened the other night, you might see where I’m coming from. We’re talking nature vs nurture here – and truly – where the HECK people get their freaky chemical imbalances.

Let me think… this was Monday night… like that matters. But I’d just gone to my child’s ballgame in my own car, planning to leave early if I needed to. My best childhood friend and her husband had come in from Arizona to spend a cabin weekend with her family – and were on their way back to her parents’ (here locally) to prepare to fly back out the next morning… not before stopping by for a short visit to mi casa.

So. I got her call just as we were leaving the field. I headed home to meet up with her and Brent took the boys for a quick bite for dinner. As I pulled in to my garage and got out, I noticed my next-door neighbor out front with her precious two-year-old. So, I said hello – chatted for one bit. And then… here comes… this giant SUV… BARRELLING down the street. I saw it coming, yelled (not screamed - and I’m not even kidding… with a tone like Yoo-hoo? Hello? Anybody in there?)… “Slow down, please! Slow down!” – which – I feel is perfectly reasonable when A. I live there. B. I have children who like to play outside, and C,D and E. I don’t want them or anyone else hit – not even a mangy dog. Okay, maybe a possum but that’s it and that thing will play dead anyway.

And so, back on track: the driver passes – doesn’t slow down at all… even hits a dip in the road with a loud THUD – I assume it’s her tail end hitting the ground – and this is a tall car, people… a Lincoln Navigator… pearly white… license plate 603 DPQ. But anyway. It seemed like a good 2 minutes pass. My neighbor and I share a thing or two about how we feel when people speed like their heads are on fire down our street. She, in fact, has had her mailbox hit three times – one having been a nice, big, brick mailbox when they moved in, and now it’s not even worth fixing the dent in part of it. It’s like a good-luck charm. Having left the dent, the thing hasn’t been hit again.

Okay – so – we’re standing there a minute or two later and this car pulls up slowly. Enough time had passed to not really recall the speeding SUV exactly and I assume the best friend is driving someone’s car I haven’t seen before. But no. This was a RAGING LUNATIC who rolls her window down, has basically climbed into her passenger’s lap in order to hang her head out the window to yell, “Did you just tell me to slow down, B**CH!?” – and, of course my inner mouthy teenager came out and said, “I most certainly did!! Because you needed to slow down!” and then holy hell broke out of this lady’s face… right around her mouth hole. “You don’t know me! I wasn’t speeding, B**CH! You don’t know how fast I was going! You’d better watch your back, B**CH! I will come over there and beat your G.D. A**!”

I’m standing there with my neighbor being verbally accosted with our mouths open in shock – neighbor defended what I’d said with “Well, just slow down. You were speeding.” And I’m all, “You need to calm down.”… returned with “YOU calm down, B**CH! You don’t know me! You’d better shut the F*** up before you get your A** beat, B**CH!” and then… oh my gosh… she pulled into my driveway, threw her car in park and said she’d get out of her car right then and “F*** me up”. My neighbor held up her phone and yelled she’d be calling the police. I calmly fish around in my purse for my phone – hoping to God she thinks I’m looking for a WEAPON – something small, maybe black, metal, and full of ammunition… Ring a bell [by bell I mean bang]? And we were so close to the neighbor’s front door, there’d have been no way she would have reached us before we could have gone inside.

She took off. And of course, I yelled again “Slow down!” because I can’t keep from smarting off sometimes. It may be Tourette’s, I don’t know. I got her license plate # and went home and called the police. Weird they can’t really do anything but call and warn this lady… and warn me not to... uh... tell people to slow down… which… I feel is a tiny bit ridiculous – in my own neighborhood. I hear about road-rage, but this was truly surreal.
And if she returns – which I highly doubt – she’ll be met with an injury I don’t think she’ll have counted on. It’s just odd. We live in a very safe area. The crime here is extremely low. I seriously doubt she lives anywhere near. She did turn toward the high school. So, I assume she may have been going to a sports event there.

But my point, I guess, is where on earth do some women get so angry and hostile… and MENTALLY UNSOUND? Is it a product of environment, completely innate, or something to do with culture and bias? I am not feeling conclusive here or even hope to start some debate. And I honestly don’t have issues against different races or ethnicities. But I wanted to (and didn’t) tell that lady, “Way to add fuel to a stereotype a lot of people still have.” And I do sometimes wonder if there’s a small sect of people who weren’t even alive during, say, slavery – but somehow feel entitled to carry a chip on their shoulder about it – and it makes me wonder further if those few people somehow believe now that their president is black, they’ve been given a new freedom to feel somewhat “vindicated” and spiteful. Well, my president is black too. And… cover your eyes and ears… I voted for him. Gasp!! I know. Shocker.

Just don't ask me if I'm thrilled with him. This isn't about that. This is about the possibilities I have a nut-job child... with Tourette's or road-rage... in her battery-operated Barbie jeep.