Saturday, August 27, 2005

The chain of exasperation : A tale of 3 hand-throwing bastards

So I am driving along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, also known locally as the Highway of Death, doing my evening commute back home. I'm doing about 80 miles an hour as usual, tailing the speeding bastard ahead of me. I look into my rear view mirror and there's a speeding bastard on my tail as well. So here we are, 3 speeding bastards, all doing 80, eager to go home and sit in front of the tv with beers in our hands. Except the one in the front. I think he just had a full bladder.

Then the speeding bastard in front of me, lets call him Bastard1, suddenly brakes and reduces his speed drastically. I brake too, swerving a bit, going into the shoulder, 'cause what's more rational than avoiding hitting the guy in front of you by hitting the concrete breaker instead? It just makes so much sense. So anyways, I see in my rear view mirror that the bastard behind me, lets call him Bastard3, has also braked and swerved. And then he throws up his hands to express his exasperation. I say to myself "Hey don't be blaming me buddy, I was just following Bastard1's lead, he's the one you should blame. So, I throw my hands up in reciprocation in order to express my exasperation with his exasperation.

Then, as I look ahead in front of me, I see Bastard1 has also thrown up his hands. I wonder to myself, "Damn, is he expressing his exasperation at my hand-throwing? But I was expressing my exasperation at Bastard3, not him. And then I wonder if Bastard3 was actually expressing his exasperation at some hand-thrower behind him, say Bastard4, and not me?

And then, I imagine an entire line of cars full of bastards, along the PA turnpike throwing their hands up, expressing their exasperation at the guy behind them, just because they mistook him to be hand-throwing at them when he was actually hand-throwing at the guy behind him.

A chain of exasperation, stretching for who knows how many miles. Makes one think. At least if one has nothing else to think about.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That was extremely funny. All the bastards on the highway throwing up their hands in exasperation, one by one, as in a Mexican wave.