After being a dick a few too many times and getting myself punched by cab drivers, pimps, or whoever happened to annoy me, I decided to learn to control my temper. Over the last year or so, I've been doing a pretty good job of it.

But, for some reason, the last few days have really tried my patience, and I've blown up a few times.

Today, for example, some twenty-something asshole whose parents bought for him an awesome ricer sportscar that gets him all sorts of laid decided it would be a good idea to sideswipe me and knock me off my bike. He did this within my apartment complex (which is saturated with speedbumps) right before making a left turn at a blind T intersection. At the Bucknuts Freaking Moron School of Driving, he learned that all of those things- speedbumps, left turns, and not being able to see traffic around the corner are reasons to speed up. Unfortunately, I'm not an alumnus, and so I was going way too slow for him. Good enough reason for him to blare his horn and knock me off of his bike. That, and he has a small prick.

I got up, hunted his ass down, blaring my horn futilely at him, and as he was driving into his apartment's parking lot, stopped him and yelled at him (slightly less futilely). He struggled to think of something to say in response to questions like, "Why do you drive like that? Are you trying to kill people, or are you just an idiot?"

His inability to answer annoyed me more, so I punched his car. This is the kind of stupid shit I do when I'm pissed. The right idea would have been to punch him, considering that his car- although a pointlessly lame ricer- wasn't being an asshole, and more importantly can't feel pain.

His passenger, who spoke irritatingly good English, got out and apologized politely and shook my hand. I'm still pissed off about how quickly that calmed me down and made me go away.

* * * * * * * *

So, later, while getting my oil changed, I noticed this hanging on the wall of mechanic's shop:


I asked the mechanic if he could install this while fixing my turn signals. He laughed, and did it. When asked "how loud is it is?" He said, "Loud... heh. Once I install it, you'll see."

It was loud. It was loud enough to annoy people who repair motorcycles. It was so loud, it knocked a cat off of a nearby roof. It's loud enough that it kind of hurts my ears when I use it.

It was fun making cab drivers slam on their brakes by making them think that a giant, blue, poorly-made truck was about to T-bone them. However, I really got my chance to test it out later this evening...

As I was entering an apartment complex gate, one of the guards in the guardhouse threw something at me. It was a banana peel. It landed between my feet on my scooter while I was moving. I heard the laughter of two halfwits coming from the guardhouse. I stopped, backed up, and looked inside. Immediately, two guards that could easily intimidate an 8 year old girl came out to apologize.

"Why did you throw that at me?" I asked.
"Um... I'm terribly sorry. It was an accident. I didn't see there was a person there."
"You don't have eyes? Or, was my headlight blinding and you are too stupid to logically reason that, if there's a moving vehicle there must be a person on it?"
"But, I said I'm sorry."
"So, why did you do that? Was it some kind of joke?"
"No no no... I didn't know..."
"Why did you laugh?"
"Um... I... uh..."
"I have something that's funny... come close."
"Huh?"
"Closer."

Nearly knocked him out of his standard issue tennis shoes.

Labels: Scooters