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.
