BLUE F-250

After reading today's blog, please feel free to take the poll at left. Thank you.

Today I was driving in Kenosha on the new Road You Love To Hate - 75th Street - between Menard's and St. Catherine's Hospital, where both east and west routes have narrowed to one lane because of construction.

Driving west on 75th Street, you might not realize or remember that the road narrows until you've crested the hill and come eye-to-eye with a back-up of traffic scrambling to get into the right hand lane.

What can make the misery of that a little more manageable is what happened to me today. This scene is repeated 1,000 times during the course of a day in the spot I was in, I'm sure.

Cars are jockeying for position, merging to the right lane. Other cars are continuing on in the left lane as far and fast as they can in order to 'cut' in line way up at the front before being forced into the right lane by the traffic cones.

Some people don't like this. Today, around noon, there was a really big guy in a really big blue Ford F-250 truck directly in front of me who REALLY didn't like it. He was using his really big truck to maneuver back-and-forth, left-and-right, to block cars that were so insensitive as to try to pass most of us in order to get further on up the road more quickly. But Mr. F-250 wasn't having any of that.

He made me sea-sick watching him because when he would spy a car in his rearview mirror approaching in the left lane and then he'd quickly sidle over to block him. "You are NOT, I repeat, NOT going to get in front of me." Then, when he saw a car boldly trying to take the right shoulder around him (presumably to make a right hand turn way down at the light), he'd veer way over to the shoulder to block THAT person.

This went on several times back and forth. Sitting right behind him in line, I could see the steam rising from his collar. The guy was torqued and getting more torqued as the seconds went by. To tell the truth, watching him go to such lengths kind of made me grin, so I slouched way down in my seat thinking that grinning was probably highly frowned on in his opinion. Did I mention he was a really BIG guy?

At one point a young guy tried to pass on the right shoulder and the big guy in the big F-250 totally cut him off. The young guy had to veer off into a furniture store parking lot and -- well -- (clearing of the throat) - an lovely exchange of hands and fingers took place at about that time. Not to be outgunned, the young dude didn't give up. Two minutes later, he tried again and zoomed down the right shoulder quicker than anybody saw him coming - and while the really big guy in the really big truck made a valiant effort to cut off the young driver at the last minute, the challenger made it around the truck with a squeal of wheels, a huge kick-up of dirt from the shoulder and more lovely gestures.

It visibly shook Mr. F-250 in that he was obviously outwitted, outlasted, outdriven and ultimately passed on the right. I slouched further down yet in my seat.

Now ... I don't know how you feel about this kind of thing and I'm very curious to know. I'll just tip my hand here and say that personally, I am all for believers standing up for what is right. But this particular behavior of moving to the left or right to block people from cutting in seems childish to me. Perhaps you disagree. You're free to.

I just think that if our motivation is to teach people lessons, it ought not make the teacher AND the student both angry. Most people I see who are classified as the STUDENTS in this scenario are not left happy. I'm wondering what particular lesson they're learning at this point. And if those classified as the TEACHERS in this scenario are really trying to instruct them to be less selfish and wait in line like everyone else, I wonder what OUR spirits are up to while we're giving that lesson. Are we thinking, "That wonderful soul behind me - he just needs to learn to wait his turn in line. I'm going to so kindly and helpfully train him to be more like Christ today." Or is our spirit more likely going: "You big $#%^*@! so-and-so -- you GET BACK IN LINE! If you think you're going to get around me so you can be LESS like Jesus, you have another thing coming!"

I don't know. It's just a thought ... something to think about.

So ... I've set up another poll so I can get a beat on human nature - because I'm SO inquisitive about this kind of stuff ... why do people do what they do?

Please participate with honesty (and anonymity) and help educate me.

And be blessed.