The Only Answer to Aggression is More Aggression

My driveway exits onto a blind hill to my right.  The result of this situation is that occasionally people whom I can’t see ahead of time happen to come over the hill as I’m pulling out.  Since the entire road is residential and my house is visible before cresting said hill, this is not a problem 90% of the time.

Once in a while, some jack ass who likes to do 10 or 20 above the limit likes to get his panties in a bunch and ride me real hard as if the following were true:

1. He has a right to speed wildly on a road on which children live;
2. I don’t have a right to exit my own driveway;
3. He has a right to act like a baby when I mildly inconvenience him like every other driver does to everyone all the time, because it’s part of driving.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not guilt-free when it comes to aggressive driving.  However, I draw a line at flipping the bird at someone for performing an unavoidable routine driving maneuver which causes me to decelerate for 2 seconds.

This morning I was on my way to the gym at around 6:10, a busy time on this street since it connects some out of staters to the Maryland transit line.  Some jackass in a black F-150 decides that I cut him off.  Of course, I know thisroad and I know the limit on this road.  I know that it takes me about 4 or 5 seconds to pull out, put the car in gear, and get up to drive speed, and I know it takes about 3 to get from that hill to where I would be.  So unless you’re speeding pretty hard, you’d barely notice.

Okay, whatever, he comes real close to – but does not kiss - my bumper.  Great.  I glance in my rear view mirror.  This cock sucker has his middle finger out. 

Oh really?

Well.

I’m pretty sure this is the last time he’ll do that for a while.

I immediately slammed on my breaks and put my car in park.  I proceeded to exit my vehicle and start walking towards his.

One guess as to how tough Mr. Toughguy with the Middle Finger was when someone like me not only called him out on his asshole behavior, but replied and confronted him.

No, he didn’t get out of his pickup truck so we could throw down in the middle of the street.  I wish.

Instead, Behind-the-Wheel-Toughguy puts his car in reverse and starts driving backward.

What a pussy.

I decided to scare him a little more and open my trunk, as if I had a gun.  He continued to backup until he was 30 or 40 feet away from me.  By this time a second car was stopped behind him, so out of courtesy to the innocent bystander, I got back in my car and drove to the gym.  Before so doing, I looked straight at his ugly face, shot him a look of utter disgust, shook my head, and did one of those “you’re a pussy” hand dismissals.

I ran a hard, fast workout that morning.  Nothing pumps you up for the gym like confrontation.

I wish I could say I’m surprised but I’m not.  There are so many dynamics to this story that I could focus on.

But I want to focus on another dynamic: chiefly, what is going on through the mind of many of my readers right now (e.g., Tim Weaver).

Some of you may think that I acted inappropriately.  I want you to think about that for a minute.

You might be asking yourselves questions like, “would he really be willing to drag that man out of his car and beat him to hospitalization because he gave him the bird?  Is that really a rational response?”  The answer is yes, I would have opened his car door if it were unlocked (and he hadn’t retreated like a girly-man) and slugged him in the face.  I would have been charged with misdemeanor assault and probably be sentenced to anger management classes and probation, and it would have been worth it.

I’ve been flipped the bird plenty of times on the road, and never do I feel the need to stop my car and beat the other driver except in this particular situation.  I know that I don’t own the road in front of my house.  But when someone is speeding down my road and decides to come very close to rear-ending me, I become provoked in a way that regular anger is insufficient to describe.  It’s almost like this douche invaded my home and assaulted me.  I don’t worry about getting rear-ended – even at high speeds – because my car needs a new bumper and I’d love to let some jerk pay for it.  However, I do worry about my wife, and in the next few years my children, pulling out of my driveway with guys like this one speeding as they please.  These people also litter in my driveway routinely.

I am positive that this asshole who put his car in reverse and drove away with his tail between his legs will think twice about driving aggressively in front of my house, and hopefully in general.  And why?  Because I showed him that there are consequences to aggression, even if the vast majority of our culture is unwilling to apply any.  My answer to aggressive behavior is to respond so inordinately more so aggressively that any instigator of aggression against me or my family will think twice before instigating again.  If someone threw a spit ball at me, I’d nuke them from orbit.

You may think it’s inappropriate or even barbaric.  But I’ll you what else it is: effective.

It’s a real shame that two generations of men in this country have been so thoroughly brainwashed into thinking that the best response to aggressive behavior is the female approach of “talking it out” or responding passively-aggressively, or, in this man’s case, simply retreating because responding is too hard.  It’s even more of a shame that these half-men who repeat the doctrine rank-and-file about “inappropriate behavior” and “anger control” and all the other canned reactions to a display of force by a man will never in their lives feel the feelings that stir inside you when you’re ready to go to blows with your enemy.

When I stopped the car to beat that man’s face, I wasn’t even thinking.  Not really, anyway.  Sure.  I braked.  Not hard enough to deprive him of enough time to stop before hitting me.  I put the car in park and unbuckled my seat.  But I wasn’t thinking, “oh gee, I wonder if this is really appropriate.”  I simply did it.  That man fucked with my home and acted in a way that could endanger me or my family and had the nerve to get angry at me as if it were my fault?  Consequences mode off.  Face beat mode on.

I often wonder how many millions and billions of creatures died because they didn’t respond with their instincts.  They didn’t use the programming that I have inherited that inspires me to defend myself and my territory from threats.  Instead, they decided it would be better to talk it out or to run away and died because of it.  In other words, the insticts that drove me to respond to aggression with more aggression were a long time in the making and extremely hard earned.  The modern American male spits on that sacrifice because it’s better to act like a pussy than risk coming off like a man.

I have been accused of many things in my time, and I will be accused of many more.  But one thing I will never be legitimately accused of being is a pussy.  The same cannot be said for Mr. Tough Guy in his F-150 who couldn’t back his truck up fast enough.  The same cannot be said for any man who reads this entry and thinks that my response was the wrong one.  If you fall into that category, let me give you some advice, and I really mean this: find your balls, reattach them, and start using them.  You will thank me later.