Minnesota Nice

Someone gave me the finger today in traffic.  Since hearing Tom Vanderbilt talk about late-merging on NPR, I’ve been practicing it as a matter of principle.  After all, engineering is on my side, even though human nature is not.  So I drove in the less congested lane to where the highway merges into a single onramp, and moved in front of another car.  This car let me in, there was no struggle.  But for some reason the dude in the green Volkswagen in front of me decides to veer in front of me (keep in mind that again, I am comfortably situated in traffic with no intent to pass him, giving no indication that I might maneuver to do so).  Still, he veers like it’s his moral responsibility to block my passage around him – a passage that even if he had veered in the completely opposite direction, would still have not allowed me through by manner of its design.  He then lifts his middle finger up to where his rear-view mirror is for a moment and then continues driving.  Being the quick-witted individual I am, I took my right hand off the shifter and got ready to return the gesture, but realized that I was wearing convertible mittens. So I awkwardly attempted to pull back the mitten part of my right hand using just that hand but my finger got caught and I had to put it back on, and then lift it off completely with my other hand, thus exposing my fingers in their individual glory.  Finally then, I was able to extend my middle finger over the steering wheel, a full 30 seconds later, in the most awkwardly forced way imaginable.  I still don’t know what I was supposed to do.

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