It’s one of my deepest pet-peeves: people driving big d*mn Chevy pickups too fast down the highway, throwing gravel that invariably chips my windshield, resulting in several $30 repairs over the years, and at least one new windshield (and a new rear-quarter glass… go fig.)
I try to see Jim-Bob Chevy coming, and give him a wide berth on the highway. Sometimes it works. Today, however…
I had left school to make it back to town for a meeting with my pastor, the nature of which had the potential to turn confrontational. It DIDN’T, but at the time I was a little keyed-up. Earlier in the day, I had accidentally bottomed-out my poor little Lancer (loudly) while rushing to drop off some overdue library videos from last week. Also earlier in the day, I had a student turn violently angry and cuss me out cold for no apparent reason. (He apologized later.)
Suffice it to say, my day had been a roller-coaster of blood-pressure and stomach acid surges.
And then I see it: a white late-model Chevy Silverado pickup comes blazing up in the passing lane.
I clench my teeth, and mutter out loud “DON’T you dare do it… don’t DO it, d*mmit…”
And he does it.
*expletive*
A quick look toward my passenger side-front glass.
*expletive, expletive*
There is a CRACK, at least 8-10 inches long, which has INSTANTLY formed near the bottom right corner… the exact location and variety of which is nearly impossible to repair.
Did I mention we can only afford to carry liability on our cars?
*enormous expletive*
I have only vague, red-tinged recollections of what happened next. I remember flashing my lights, honking wildly, and gunning it up to 90 to run the sucker down.
I remember cutting in front of him — a kid in a baseball cap and his buddy, completely ignorant of the pain they had caused me, and the lingering death hovering a mere eight feet and two closed doors away. I slowed down. He passed me. I rode his butt, alternately gunning the engine and falling back, for the next several miles into town.
When we got there, did I come to my senses? Oh no. I followed him across town (which was, admittedly, the direction I was going,) turning when he turned, and hoping like anything that I was scaring the hell out of him.
I wondered what I would do when I caught up and he stopped. I imagined saying something like, “I just wanted you to know that you, in your successful attempt to gain two minutes in your drive to town, managed to fling gravel through my windshield. Now you’re here, and I’m out money I DON’T have to replace this less than one-year old windshield. Congratulations. I hope to God you feel bad, you little sh*t, and I hope you take other drivers NOT in big-*ss Chevy trucks into consideration the next time you decide to break the law and speed.”
Something like that. Yeah.
So anyway, a few random turns later, he stops over by the YMCA. Afraid of what I might actually do to him (or have done to me,) I keep on driving, knuckles white on the wheel and eyes fixed dead ahead.
Anyway, then I had my meeting with Pastor.
An hour later, murder was the furthest thing from my mind. On the way home, I kept my eyes peeled for that white Chevy pickup. I wanted to find them and leave them a note, apologizing for how I behaved, and telling them how much of a jerk I felt for doing that to them.
So if you read this, 9KJ-ZO3, the crazy guy in the little white Lancer is sorry for being an *expletive*, and hopes you can forgive him.
On the family front, we learned a couple of weeks ago that our 4th child will be a masculine child, tentatively named Samuel, and still due sometime in early October. This news was met with much enthusiasm by eldest brother John, went in one ear of brother Reid before promptly exiting the other ear, and was the target of vigorous raspberries from 15-month old sister Sadie.
This is troubling.
Came across 
