February 17
Someone explain to me why a perfectly nice person any other place, when you put them behind the wheel of a car they turn into psychos from the underworld? 
I am not the most patient person in the world but I am not about to start hollering bloody murder to a total stranger because they, horrors, actually got ahead of me in traffic! 
For Pete's sakes! Who cares whose first?
Have we ever stopped to think that the driver in front of us might have just been told they have cancer?
Or their spouse is dying?
Maybe they got fired or they are in an abusive relationship they can't escape?
How about that simple fact?
Maybe that unknown person that just got in front of you in traffic has never been first in anything!
They have never won anything or accomplished much.
They are just average people with average problems probably living mundane lives!
If you think I am being melodramatic let me tell you a story. When I was still a trooper I was on the side of the road in the middle of a traffic stop. Suddenly a car comes speeding down the road and almost clipped my fellow trooper who had come down to back me up. We wound up in a 20 minute chase to get this "nut" off the road! We finally got him pulled over, we took him into custody and got him to the station for booking.
The man was obviously not all there. He seemed so out of it, yet he did not appear drunk or high in drugs.
While I was searching him for the booking process I noticed a crumpled piece of paper in his fist. I asked him nicely to open his hand so I could see what it was. He started crying uncontrollably. He slowly opened his hand; balled up inside was a picture of a smiling baby of about 9 months.
He slowly told me that his only son was fatally ill and was taken off life support that day. All of a sudden the "nut" became a grief stricken father!
The other trooper was a little surprised, he was not married and did not have any kids yet!, when I asked the gentleman if he had any family that could come pick him up. There was no way I was going to send this man to jail.
He even apologized to my partner, he was so grief stricken to get home to his wife, he had not even seen us on the side of the road or realized we were following him!
This happened over twenty years ago and it will remain as a lesson to me that we never know what challenges people around us are facing.
Another thing, have you ever noticed that if you let someone go ahead of you in traffic, they start letting others go ahead of them too?
Goes around, comes around, Karma is an amazing thing!
So if you are blessed enough to have a halfway decent life why not let someone succeed at something today, even if it's something as small as just being ahead of you in traffic?
Who knows you might start a chain reaction of one good turn deserve another.
Honestly unless you are in the situation this poor man was in, is rushing around really worth all that stress and anger?
Who knows, you might even actually have a smile when you get home tonight instead of a headache!
Wow, I never noticed that there was a park there!? See driving slower does have its benefits!
Want to go for a walk, Buddie, Boy?
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