Am I A Curmudgeon?

I'm wondering, am I a curmudgeon? Or is the world really getting stupider?

Things that ten years ago I never would have seen, at all, or at which I would just shrug off with an accompanying shake of the head, now bother me. Last night, for instance. And before this goes farther, let me warn anyone reading this: I don't pull punches or beat around bushes. I say what I think on all subjects, so please don't take offense. It's called 'freedom of speech'.

I work in Calistoga. I live "over the hill" in Sonoma County. It's a pretty big hill, even around here. Getting out of town, or getting in, there is a pretty respectable grade. It's posted as 12% and a mile-and-a-half long. It's a serious climb for my car at the end of the day, and it's dangerous for big trucks coming down because there is no "out" if they lose their brakes and need one.

From the top, there's a fairly steep stretch for about a quarter-of-a-mile, then it "levels" out a bit, then descends again, gets steeper, then levels and then goes into the final descent. It's respectable and it's not a grade on which you can just cruise down sans brakes. It's cambered the wrong way in places so your momentum carries you in the wrong direction (toward the bank) if you get going too fast.

After work yesterday, I was heading up the hill and, about two-thirds of the way up, I started around a bend when I was met by two skateboarders heading down in the other lane. There was a line of cars behind them, all apparently doing what I've observed in the past few years to be a reasonable speed. In other words, the cars weren't going noticeably slower than they would have been without these idiots in front of them which means the two skateboarders had to have been going at least forty-five miles per hour by then because they were a good half-mile into the descent. At that speed, it's called "terminal velocity" for good reason.

A bump, a stone, a wheel coming off, just any little thing and... what? What would happen?

The boarder would fly off the board - at a high rate of speed - and would go tumbling and flailing and rolling and... There would be no way for the other one to stop safely. At the very least, the one who fell would get badly hurt, probably killed. If not from the repeated impacts with the road as he bounced and flailed and rolled, but by an oncoming car. Because there is traffic on that road. It's a primary road in and out of the Napa Valley so it's not like they had it to themselves. The second one, distracted by his buddy's situation, would probably lose control, too. So you would have two brain dead morons bouncing, rolling, tumbling and flailing into oblivion.

Then what? What about the oncoming car(s)? It would be virtually impossible for one projectile to miss the other - unless the moron happened to sail off the edge of pavement into the embankment. Or unless the car went over the side and down the embankment on the down-slope side of the road.

So after the dust settled and we have at least one seriously messed up car, probably an injured driver, possibly injured passengers, and a dead brain dead moron, there's the aftermath.

How would you like to live with the knowledge that, even though it wasn't your fault and there was no way of avoiding the accident because of some dumb-ass brain dead moron, you killed someone?

I wouldn't like it. I wouldn't like it, at all. Even though intellectually I would know it was their bad choice, their own damned fault, I would still feel guilty. Horribly so, and there wouldn't be a single thing I could do about it, except endlessly wrestle with my conscience and a million 'what-if' scenarios that would make zero difference in the final analysis.

And then what? Would that kid's family or their insurance company try to sue the driver of the car into which this dumb ass ran? In this day and age, probably.

And... for what? Why? Because they're adrenaline junkies and want to get a rush? Sorry folks, but there is only one term for someone this astonishingly selfish, self-centered and unthinking: Fucking MORON.

Only I hope they don't. I hope that particular collection of genes ends with them.

So that was yesterday.

This morning, I was on my way to work. It was early, around seven o'clock. I don't drive fast. I usually do between fifty and sixty and stay in the right lane so I don't irritate people who want to go faster. So I'm cruising along at about fifty-five in the slow lane when a truck merges onto the freeway just ahead of me. I check the lane to my left. It's clear, so I move over and more cars come on at the same on-ramp, meaning I can't go back into the right lane for a while.

Out of nowhere, this idiot comes racing up behind me - I was probably doing sixty by then and he had to have been doing seventy-five or better because he was nowhere and then he was there. I couldn't get over to the right to get out of his way because of the other cars, but he swerved (and I use that word with purpose, because that's what he did) into the HOV lane, cutting off another car, zoomed past me, swerved in front of me and swept through the next lane into the exit lane - completely ignoring everyone else - and then zoomed around the truck that had first caused me to move over, then back across all lanes into the HOV lane.

WTFIUWT??? In the space of a half a mile he endangered probably fifteen or twenty other people. And for what? Why? What was so damned important that he had to put the rest of us at risk?

I don't get that. Was his ass on fire and he was heading to the ER for treatment? That's the only thing I can think of that makes that kind of behavior make any sense at all.

And these things seem to be happening more and more often. I used to see them once in a while, maybe once or twice a week, but now it seems it's an almost daily event.

You know, writing this out and thinking about it, I don't really think I'm a curmudgeon. I think I'm sane and these other people are nuts. In fact, I suspect the majority of other people on the road who saw these things think the same.

Whew! Curmudgeon-dom averted. I'm normal.

I hope you have a normal, curmudgeon-less day, too!

Best~
Philippa

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