2003-02-11 � rage

Rage and Marisa Tomei's Evil Twin

o people. I know Valentine's Day is near and I should be all full of love and posies and little pink and red cartoon hearts should be throbbing out of me like bubbles and maybe later this week I will post an entry that's all rosy with romance and stuff, but right now I'm ready to rant!

There is a woman I see frequently as I pull up to the Williams' Coffee House to get my morning coffee. She sorta looks like Marisa Tomei, but not nearly as perky and cute and sunshiny. She looks like Marisa Tomei after a three week bender, with dark circles and wrinkles under her eyes and deep, deep frown lines bracketing her mouth in a perma-sneer, Marisa Tomei after she was beaten with an ugly stick. She drives a big silver gas-guzzling SUV and frequently wears striped turtlenecks.

In my head, I call her Princess Honksalot and I don't like her. I don't like her at all.

She is possibly the most impatient woman i've ever seen behind the wheel. She bounces up and down in her seat like a snivelly little pekingese dog all hopped up on rage and goofballs, gripping the steering wheel with her hooker red talons, smacking her gum and screaming at other vehicles, mostly without cause.

She once screamed and menaced me, her eyes buggin' and her too long teeth gashing madly, tearing up the atmosphere, as I sat behind the wheel of my modest little car, waiting for a pregnant woman pushing a stroller full of baby across the intersection. As I glared at her, she began whacking at her car horn like a woman possessed, beating it as if it were a moldy centuries-old rug that she just had to shake clean.

"GO! GO!" I could see her shrieking at me, her ugly red mouth working up and down like a demented nutcracker. "For fuck's sake, GO!!!!"

"WHAT?" I mouthed at her in an exaggerated soundless way, leaning into my windshield and gesturing to the pregnant pedestrian and her puppies as if to indicate "You expect me to mow over this momma and her babies just to please your fuzzy ass?"

The fact i had the audacity to respond seemed to enrage her all the more and her frizzy head nearly nodded off her neck in a frenzy of profanity spitting and air chomping. As the pregnant woman cleared the intersection and I rolled past her shiny silver SUV, Princess Honksalot waggled her cellphone at me, glaring daggers and sprayed saliva at the passenger side window.

I thought about shooting her the bird. I thought about shooting her period. But instead I smiled wide and gave her a cheerful little wave, mouthing "have a nice day!" at her in exaggerated fashion as I slowly drove by.

Today, she was shrieking and freaking at an old man with spectacles and three large round age spots on his bald head like Mr. Burns. They were in the parking lot. Princess Honksalot was trying to back out of her space but Mr. Burn's shiny olive green SUV was blocking her progress as he waited for another car to pull out and then for two men in puffy jackets to cross to the coffee shop.

The Princess was in fine form, throwing a royal hissy fit and blaring her car horn. Poor Mr. Burns looked trapped and shamed, and if truth be told, a little panicked. I think he would have been a lot panicked if he could see her face, but he couldn't, of course. He could only see her shiny silver SUV ass and hear the blaring of her car horn. His eyes darted about frantically and his head swivelled this way and that as he looked behind and to either side for transgression, believing I'm sure, that he must be committing a most grievous violation to incite such violent honking. Believing, likely, that the crumpled corpse of her cat or only child or handsome wood cutter husband must be wedged beneath his car to solicit such a reaction.

And you know, I think most everyone who knows me would tell you that I'm quite pleasant, normally. Cheerful and friendly and certainly not one easily given to violence.... but it took everything I had in me, every ounce of restraint, to prevent me from slamming out of my vehicle, smashing in her window Jack Nicholson style with a golf club and socking her right in the eye. Every ounce, people.

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