Close Encounters of the Asshole Kind

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Too mild for the Pit, I think. I didn’t read anything in forum rules about swearing in thread titles, but if I violated a rule there, I apologize.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning. My husband and I were at a stoplight in the straight lane and needed to get into the right-turn lane. Husband put on his blinker and pulled over into said lane. I guess the car directly behind us was trying to do the same thing because as soon as my husband got over, the guy pulled behind us and started laying on his horn.

Our windows were rolled down.

The passenger of said honking car screams out, ‘‘Next time use your blinker, dickhead!’’

My husband, who used his blinker but nonetheless may have accidentally cut the guy off, shouted back, ‘‘Sorry!’’

Dude says, ‘‘All right.’’ And then, not two beats later… ‘‘Hey, you aren’t getting smart with me, are you buddy? You better not be getting smart with me, asshole! I’m not afraid to go to jail! I’m gonna pull you out of your car and beat the shit out of you! You dumbfuck faggot! You fucking prick!’’ Etc.

At the time, I was so amazed at how riled up this guy was getting over a fucking apology that I was trying not to laugh. But at the same time, I know there are some crazy people out there and neither I or my husband wanted to escalate the situation. So we said nothing. Even with absolutely no reaction from us this guy thought it was appropriate to keep screaming ‘‘pussy!’’ and ‘‘faggot!’’ at my husband halfway down the next block.

I’m still kinda mad about it. It was otherwise a beautiful day; we went to the aquarium with my husband’s father in law who came from out of town. It pisses me off to know that when I look back on this nearly perfect day, it will be forever marred by some pissant loser with a temper problem who felt he had something to prove.

I have to wonder if some people just get up in the morning and think, ‘‘Ya know what? I’m going to ruin someone’s good mood today.’’

Have YOU encountered an asshole lately? (Sadly, I think I already know the answer to this one…)

2

I’m picturing some guy in a falling-apart Camero.

3

This song applies.

4

Silly question, but what aquarium? The one in Camden?

Worst I had today was a Lexus SUV that pulled into the fast lane to do about 57 in the 65 zone.

5

Not a big one but … I was cycling to work this morning, freewheeling down the hill. Slowly, undoubtedly, but I figure if gravity’s doing my work for me, why should I put out extra effort? I’m way over to the gutter side of a nice wide Copenhagen-style bike lane (that is, separated from the cars) with plenty of room to pass.

Which this dude does, yelling out “What is this, a funeral procession?” as he goes.

???

I certainly wasn’t in the guy’s way - he didn’t even have to watch out for traffic as he passed. Apparently he found it personally offensive that some people would rather have a relaxing gentle ride to work than go hell-for-leather and get there five minutes earlier. Go figure.

6

Say what? :wink:
A weird encounter I had about a month ago had me shaking my head for the rest of the day.

I had been downtown for a meeting and stopped by a fast food place for a cup of coffee. I went through the drive-through, and as I came out I had to stop for traffic. I had pulled over the sidewalk and was stopped there when I noticed two men in wheelchairs coming along the sidewalk. I thought “I’m in those dudes’ way” so I put the car in reverse and backed up some. As I was waiting for traffic to clear, and wheelchair guys to pass, my thoughts had gone on ahead to my plans of the day and I was thinking about getting on the I-55.

I always lock my doors when I get on the Interstate, so I reached up and clicked the door locks. Well it just so happened that Crabby Wheelchair Man was, at that moment, crossing in front of me and he took offense to that. He stopped and shook his fist at me “You ain’t gotta lock yo’ doors! I ain’t fittin’ to come jumpin up in yo car !” I thought “NO shit, I wouldn’t expect you to come HOPPING up to rob me !!”. Sheesh.

7

Just think about how angry that man is. Think about how much it affected/affects his life. To always go around with that much anger hanging off the tip of his nose…

I firmly believe, and nothing will change my mind, that angry people are not happy. He’s done nothing to your day; I mean you go home with your loving husband, etc. But he’s probably still fuming over it.

Let him just roll off your back like water rolls off a penguin, is what I say!

8

I thought of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song Cabrón.

I should have turned around and yelled, ‘‘Let’s keep the moon awake and do electric boogaloo!’’ That would have fixed the problem.

Aww, Anaamika reminded me of the penguins!

Not a silly question. Yes, the Camden Aquarium. It was hands-down the best aquarium I have ever seen. I saw amazing things. And on our way out, some guy proposed to his girlfriend on the Delaware River waterfront using one of those banner planes flying over the Philadelphia skyline. He had a mohawk of many colors and pumped his fist in the air triumphantly. She was standing there crying and grinning and it was awesome. (All in all, this day was more goodness than badness.)

Yeah, that was definitely meant to read, ‘‘my father in law.’’

People wonder why some people don’t like to talk to strangers in public. This is the reason.

9

That would have scared me. People are respectful in my town but tonight there were two shady looking guys jaywalking towards my car. I pulled out and one of them yelled, “There was a stop sign there you dumb B”. I just didn’t want them any closer to me so I took off. Sometimes you just have to be safe.

10

Yeah, I encountered one today, while playing WoW. I was running a random dungeon and we got this guy in the group who was an absolute dick, insulting everybody in his oh-so-cool “leetspeak.” I whispered him to shove a sock in it, and he spent the rest of the run insulting me in whispers, calling me “faggot,” and generally being about as much of an idiot as he could possibly be. Oh, and he refused to heal my character, and kept sending me gloating tells about that. What a moron. Clearly the Greater Internet F*ckwad Theory is alive and well in the World of Warcraft.

11

This is the reason I don’t play MMOs (notice a common theme here?)

12

I don’t sleep there anymore but my ex-wife and daughters live in our semi-rural house on 2 1/2 acres of land that we restored ourselves. The former neighbors were a dream but they sold their house to honest to God PETA activists and really obnoxious examples of those if that is possible. They must have been sent to a training camp or something at an early age because you just don’t see people with asshole skills like that running free in the wild. We tried to leave them cookies when the first moved in and said that they didn’t eat sweets, threw them away, and returned the plate. The stories go on and on.

The “man” is a veterinarian and his wife is some sort of animal shelter volunteer. They have 6 rescue dogs and two horses plus assorted other animals. The dogs bark but there is no issue there because the neighborhood is zoned for animals of all types and most people on the street have them. Sounds good.

I just found out last week that he has been making calls at odd hours to my ex-wife threatening felony charges for animal cruelty on our behalf because of mistreatment to our dog. Apparently, our dog barks at all hours of the day and night disturbing the peace and he and his wife are just sick about it and have to do something.

The catch is…we don’t own a dog or a cat or any other mammals. My daughter has a goldfish and that is it. The only dog that ever comes around every few weeks belongs to my ex-MIL and he is a spoiled little cairn terrier.

My ex-wife called the police to start proceedings for harassment charges under Massachusetts law but it takes three documented examples because it really is a one-sided and unstable situation that is completely out of place. I was playing with my young daughters in the yard today and they were squealing and screaming like little girls do when a police cruiser drove by at two miles per hour. I am almost certain that they called them for something made-up as retaliation and I feel at risk for it as a parent because I can’t tell what they will resort to now if charges threaten his livelihood. I won’t ever start something like that but I will end it no matter what it takes.

13

Shagnasty, ugh. Recurring assholes are the worst kind.

14

My g/f witnessed a beating last week over this exact thing. Guy 1 was in the right lane, Guy 2 was in the left and suddenly switched lanes without a turn signal. All windows were down. Guy 1 says, “Nice turn signal, asshole.” Guy 2 stops his car, jumps out, and proceeds to beat the ever lovin shit out of Guy 1. My g/f said that Guy 1’s tone was not dickish enough to warrant even a response from Guy 2 let alone a beating.

Several months ago I had a guy stop his car in front of me on the on-ramp to the interstate to scream at me for tailgating him. As soon as he got out of his car and started to walk back toward me, I got my cellphone in plain view and started to dial 911. Thankfully, he thought better of his road rage and walked back to his car without incident but damn, some people have a hair trigger.

15

I note OP is in New Jersey. That explains so much. When I was over that way I think I’ve ran into that guy too!

I pulled up to a stop sign, it was a weird intersection with a corner that could best be described as jagged. It stuck out a weird angle and had a wall or something that I couldn’t see around. Anyway I stop close enough to see around it, but Anger Management himself pulls up behind me and starts going psycho. I guess I was supposed to blow through it or something because Anger Management yells “Keep going fucking retard. fuck you fucking retard FUCK YOU!!”

At this point I’m a little a shocked, to say the least. Eh, whatever. I keep driving. Well Anger Management wasn’t done. He pulls up to the ass end of my car. I could have stepped from my trunk on to his hood, he was close. I guess the speed limit down a residential road wasn’t fast enough for him. He starts honking, and I’m wondering if he’s gonna try to ram me or something.

So figuring it best to be rammed at a slower speed I slow down. He goes furious and starts honking but doesn’t back off. Eventually we make it to an intersection. I go one way, he goes the other. I think I might have passed him on the highway later. I heard some doppler shifted on coming obscenities. It was quite an interesting sound to behold.

16

I had a neighbor once who didn’t like our hair* (I had a shaved head, my husband had long hair) and decided to harass us. He called a towing company, claiming to be the property manager at our townhouse development, and had our van towed (from our assigned parking spot). Twice. He also put in calls to animal control claiming that we let our dog run loose in the neighborhood (we didn’t–he got out exactly one time, as we were going from the car to the door, and we caught him maybe 4 houses away. Other than that he was ALWAYS on a leash).
*I know this was the reason because they left a note on our front door bitching about our hair and telling us to “look at what kind of neighborhood we’d moved into.”

17

I had a guy on a motorcycle pull up and started screaming at me and said I was tailgating him. I honestly wasn’t but said sorry, THEN HE SPIT ON MY WIFE! He pulled in front of me giving me the finger so I ran into him.

Go to court soon.

18

Why would you choose to dwell on the negative part of the day? Just remember the pleasant parts.

19

I gave a ride home from work today to a teen friend of my daughter’s, who works at the grocery store bagging groceries and carrying them out to the customers’ cars. Devon is kind of a tough-looking guy. He said that this morning, a man who was there with his young son started bitching out his bagger, a teen girl, swearing at her, calling her an incompetent idiot and telling her she deserved to be fired. So Devon took over bagging the rest of the man’s groceries. Devon banged the eggs hard into the bottom of the bag, put the bread in next, then put the heavy stuff on top of the bread. He dropped the bags hard into the cart, took them out to the man’s SUV, slammed them harder into the back, shut the door and, looking him in the eye, said “Have a nice day.” The man didn’t do anything except get in the car with his son and leave.

20

This is why I am always begging my boyfriend not to provoke people even if they are assholes. Sometimes we’re on the bike and someone cuts us off without using a signal, scaring the hell out of us, and my boyfriend always shakes his fist at them when we pass them. I am terrified that one day he will shake his fist at some psycho who will run us down.