I love driving fast and so I encourage all people to pass on the left and to go on their merry way if they are in a hurry. I get it. I like getting there sooner, too.
But I cannot stand tailgaters. If you are in a hurry then get going, go around.
In wintertime traffic jams I really hate tailgaters. Is being six inches off my rear bumper necessary? Does it get you here faster?
And so I found myself in the right lane northbound tonight and had an SUV impatient to get to wherever it was that he wanted to go while locked on my bumper. I found myself getting pretty steamed by this, since I was in a hurry myself but remaining patient. And I got even more irritated every time I looked back to see him jam on his brakes just short of tapping me.
WHAT could I do? If I slowed down, other people would simply pull in front of me and I would never move. What was I going to do?
Then, I channeled McGoo…
That venerable master of Denny’s, an asshole of massive proportions (he proudly crowed), and one of the best sneak attack veterans ever – a goth-baiter non pareil… I channeled Steamboat McGoo.
I could feel a calm come over me as the plan crystallized in my mind. I would speed up and brake at random, never for the same amount of time, and never resume after the same interval. Sometimes the lengths between me and the car in front would be 200 feet. Sometimes it would be 20 feet.
And it drove him wild. He was all over the road and could not tail me as badly as he wanted. After about ten minutes of this he violently swerved into the left lane and tailed that person instead, making exactly zero gains.
And I laughed and laughed and tipped my hat inMcGoo’s general direction.
Note: this will be known henceforth as “The McGoo Maneuver” in honor of my good friend McGoo.
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Well, maybe Fukushima is worse than I thought. It is affecting squid now.
Thanks to Cruel Wife for that awesome find.
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Diapers found at incinerator, found to be radioactive, and left there for days to become less radioactive before incineration. And here I thought diapers became more radioactive, not less, over time.
Boy, the whole radioactivity news line lately is hot-hot-hot.
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You might have a problem if you are mixing cocktails with hand sanitizer. Maybe.
Well, it does say it has vitamins. Maybe he’ll be ok.
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You know I have dreamed of the Republican Party giving up on the ridiculous contortions to court the Latino vote, but never like this.
Outstanding solution, LK! My heart soars like a hawk!
No! Wait! Like a vulture!
I would say normally it was passive-aggressive in any other context but this was targeted assholery, which is different.
Like a vulture – carrion on!
When you can snatch the pebble from my hand young Grasshopper, it will be time for you to leave.
Nice tailgater trick, I’ll have to try it during my daily drive to work in DC
Randomness is the key. Drifting, accelerating, slowing and accelerating… Make it impossible for them to anticipate what you are going to do. It will become so taxing for them that they will wig out.
Not sure if pebbles were snatched or if it was random emulation by accident. But it was fun.
Yeah, but you’re all mathematical-like, so your pattern was probably especially obnoxious! I’m guessing an arbitrary seed 256-bit pseudo-random speed/brake algorithm ! Hee-hee!
And – its not passive-aggressive when its coldly calculated and methodically carried out with malice ! IMHO, anyway!
You should have seen the graph of the second and third derivatives of my velocity – it is organic with LSD.
Exactly how I saw the p/a aspect… It was a full-on war of assholery.
I will simply have to try that McGoo trick next time I’m out on the highway. I spend about an hour a day to and from work on Hwy 421 where most of it the speed limit is 60 mph. I stay in the slow lane and run about 65. Without fail, there’s always some asshat that gets on my rear end and stays there for no reason, whether there’s any other traffic around or not. Usually I just slow down to 45 and make them go around, the McGoo way sounds like so much more fun!
As for Fukushima and the radioactivity news line, it’s been hot for a while now. I’m expecting Godzilla to come up and destroy Tokyo any day now.
The McGoo Maneuver, as it shall henceforth be named, takes some attention and planning but the payout is enormously satisfying. This way, they get negative reinforcement for their asshat ways, not just the immediate payoff and self-smug reinforcement they get when they irritatedly pass when you slow down. If everyone does this the tailers will soon find that tailing is too much work and they will naturally opt not to do it in the first place.
The McGoo Maneuver. That is it right there. That needs its very own post, and it needs to be spread far and wide across algores wonderful webz.