Hey kettle, this is pot... you're black.

I consider myself to be a vigilante on wheels. There are few things in this world that irritate me more than rude drivers. Excessive speeding, not signaling, tailgating... these are just a sampling of things that drivers do all the time that are completely unnecessary and just plain tick me off.

The worse thing about my road rage is that it turns me into someone I am not. I mean, it starts out harmless enough. First I grit my teeth, then I start sighing heavily (as if they can hear the frustration in my breathing),  then I start talking to myself with saying like "people are crazy" and "i just don't understand...".

You know it's starting to get bad when I begin talking to the other drivers. I don't know why we do this, but I think everyone at some point or another has done it. Maybe we're all just a little bit crazy. First I try to reason with them by saying things like, "are you sure you want to try that buddy?" or "see, now wasn't that a stupid decision?" But when I really start to get irritated, that's when the name calling begins.

Luckily, I now have a child which has forced me to clean up my road rage language. On our recent trip to watch my husband's graduation from ODS in Rhode Island, I started yelling at other drivers and my sister turns to me and says, "Hey, since when did you stop calling people a (insert colorful adjective followed by humorous expletive)?" Well, kids will do that to you. Especially when they start repeating things that you say. Anyway, my old phrases have been replaced with words like "jack wagon",  "jerk-face" and "son of a gun".

So I start screaming at the "jack wagons" on the road and then I put forth my own sense of justice. Like speeding up so I can get in front of them and then go to pass a truck and slow down to match the speed of the truck. I usually stay this speed till I see them throw their hands in the air in frustration so i know they have experienced the same feelings they so kindly bestowed upon me. My other favorite is to  pull my car into the middle of the far left lane and the middle lane when drivers are warned to merge right because the left lane is ending. Sorry pal, you need to get over when the sign tells you to rather than cut me off at the last moment because you wanted to pass another car. This is usually followed by my other form of justice so they learn patience.

See, now when I'm on the road, I feel almost like it's my duty to treat other drivers like this. And anyone who's gone on a long car ride with me as the driver usually finds it pretty humorous. But really, I'm just being a jerk. I think I'm so much better than everyone else on the road because I don't consider myself a rude driver. But in trying to teach the rude drivers of this world a lesson, I become even worse than they are. Perhaps I should just be a courteous driver all the time. Even if it doesn't teach the rude drivers a lesson, I'm sure it will teach my children a lesson. And I'm even more convinced it will teach me a lesson.