Traffic

 

Last night, just after dark, I pulled my little Scion XB onto the I-75 entrance ramp from Battlefield Parkway.  At the top pf the ramp, I put on my left turn signal (like a good little boy) and checked my rearview mirror.  Nothing in my lane.  I glanced over my left shoulder to make sure there wasn’t a car to the left of me in my blind spot.  Again, nothing in my lane.  But as I pulled onto the interstate, a tractor trailer on the shoulder ahead of me also began to inch his way onto the interstate … into my lane.  So, I checked my mirror again and saw there was enough room ahead of oncoming traffic for me to get over into the next lane to let the tractor trailer ahead of me onto the interstate as well.  And again, I put my turn signal on.  But a tractor trailer behind me was coming on too fast, and he did not want to slow down to let me in.  He was determined to push me off the road.  One tractor trailer ahead was merging into my lane and another tractor trailer behind was intimidating me in my new lane.  So, I just accelerated and hoped the driver behind me would see the situation.  But he didn’t want to slow down, so he ran right up to my bumper and laid on his horn.  Well, I got a little feisty and gave him the brake test: I put on my brakes just enough to let him see my brake lights.  He reacted with his brakes (the test worked) but continued on his horn.  When he finally stopped blowing his horn, I sped up to 75 mph (the speed limit plus five) and we parted.  What he couldn’t see in the dark was that he had just been just rude to Santa Claus!  I was going to a booking at a retirement center in Chattanooga.  This tractor trailer driver had immediately gone onto the Naughty List!   But this Santa had gone onto the Naughty List too, since I wasn’t kind (and administered the brake test).  I was reminded of Ephesians 4:32, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”  The tractor trailer driver was rude, but so was I.  Two wrongs don’t make a right, even if one wrong is Santa Claus.