The Old Man In the SUV

note:  the following was written on January 2nd, at about two in the afternoon.

As a result of events that took place on Dec 31st, 2010, I am experiencing something new:  I am anxious as a passenger in an automobile.   This is not that story.

The reason I am sharing this is because moments ago, while a passenger in a car being driven by a friend that was actually borrowed from another friend, a close encounter of the GMC Yukon kind was had.

I am now a little tense.

While approaching an uncontrolled intersection on the way back to my house, the Yukon barreled into view, exceeding the posted speed limit by a good 20kph.  We braked.  He slid through the intersection, did an unnecessary evasive action and narrowly avoiding clipping a tree, after narrowly avoiding clipping us.  Noting that no significant impact had occurred, the friend driving our vehicle elected to continue on.  I probably would have stopped and checked on the other driver, but we were running behind and he had a flight to catch, and this is all in hindsight, anyway.

We were actually about a half a block from my house when this happened, so when we parked and began pulling this friend's bags from the car, it was not terribly surprising when the Old Man in the SUV pulled up to talk to us.  What was surprising was that he considered the incident to be our fault.  Words were exchanged.  Having recently been in an accident, I took over the conversation from our side, and while what I actually said was that he had been speeding and had failed to observe the rules of an uncontrolled, 4-way intersection, what I meant was that he could go cram it up his cram-hole.  He stood there for some time while we went about the business of transferring bags from one car to another, without saying a word, and eventually left.

Insurance information was not exchanged and no animals were harmed in the making of this blog, though I may have lost a year from my life due to stress.


Addendum:  Further inspection of the tree in question has revealed that he actually did abrade the tree with his motor carriage.