B68

Virginia

B68

She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-On-Facebook (SWSNBNOF) told me an interesting tale of RAGE today.

About two years ago, she was returning home from school along Starkey Road in Roanoke after an ordinary day teaching the children at her school everything there is to know. She came to the intersection of Starkey and Rt.419 and waited for a break in traffic in order to make a right turn on the red to get onto the highway heading toward Tanglewood Mall. 

Traffic is always a little tricky at this intersection, especially with cars streaming down Starkey from across the highway on their green left turn arrow.  SWSNBNOF was willing to be patient, however.  She’d seen too many close calls there.

Coming down the hill by K-92FM was a silver Mercedes, but it was well beyond the danger zone.  So she pulled out onto Rt. 419.  The next thing she knew, the Mercedes was on her tail and the driver was blaring his horn and shaking his fist at her.

The only thing SWSNBNOF could figure was that the gentleman was speeding down the hill and bum-rushed the light.  She was sure that she had executed a normally safe entry to the highway.

The Mercedes pulled alongside her car and the tiny, bespeckled, geriatric driver looked over as he covered her with all sorts of curses and fist shakes.  As he sped off to get stopped at the first of several lights around Tanglewood, SWSNBNOF caught his license plate number: Virginia plates.  B68.  He was still furiously shaking his fist and cursing when the next light turned green and he sped off to the next light.  Then he was gone.

That was two years ago.

Today, SWSNBNOF was coming home after an ordinary day teaching the children at her school everything there is to know when she approached the very same intersection as two years ago where she first met B68.

As she waited for her opportunity to make the right onto Rt.419, she heard a commotion at the Country Store light behind her.  Someone was repeatedly blaring their horn and some driver back there.  The honking broke through the Terry Gross interview on NPR, but she was more concerned about finding the safe gap to enter the road.

The cars from across the highway got their left turn arrow and they began to roll out and onto Rt 419 in front of her.  She was immersed in her hunt for a safe gap when, suddenly, the driver behind her began laying onto his horn.  B-E-E-P  B-E-E-P; B-E-E-P  B-E-E-P;  

B-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-P  B-E-E-P; B-E-E-P  B-E-E-P!

It was none other than B68!  The diminutive, wispy-haired bulbous-nosed old maniac pressed forward against the safety harness of his silver Mercedes; his face purple with rage; his shaking fist practically breaking his windshield as he spewed cursed words louder than Terry Gross on the radio.

In a queer twist of plot, he apparently thought that SWSNBNOF should have pulled out in front of one of the cars turning left onto the highway-the exact same situation in reverse as two years before when he was in a speeding car turning left.

SWSNBNOF said that she began laughing at him once she realized who was behind her, which seemed to fuel his rage even more.   After she made her entry onto Rt. 419, B68 blitzed onto the road and sped past her raging and shaking his tiny fist.  Heading at an unbridled pace…to the next stoplight.