I’m waiting to turn onto the main drag that connects our development to the interstate. Waiting on a car barreling down on my left. At the last second the driver decelerates and turns on his blinker — but never moves into the right-turn lane, obstructing my view and forcing me to wait to see that the coast is clear.
My left hand leaves the wheel (it’s either that or drop my cell phone). And Lord help me, it prepares to give this guy the finger.
What madness is this? I was about to shout profanities at my daughter’s drama teacher, or our lawn aeration guy, or my sister-in-law’s next-door neighbor. Somebody’s next-door neighbor, for sure, and probably no drug fiend, sociopath or mortgage bond trader. I’ve learned that bad driving doesn’t equate to bad people. Some of my favorite humans are terrible drivers.
And what if he was a coke-sniffing socially-irresponsible bond trader, now screeching to a halt and jumping out of his car? I’d have to apologize, buy a bond. But what option did I have? The fist shake? That’s so 1950’s Brooklyn cabbie, so comic book, so impotent. Honk the horn? That’s an attention grabber, not a sign replacement. It’s the finger or nothing. I went with nothing. Wholly unsatisfying.
Dude, what’s the deal? That’s all I wanted to communicate. Just as I’d like to be able to convey “Pardon me madam, but your behavior was inappropriate” to the lady who tailgated for three blocks and then blew past me at twice the speed limit.
But our non-American Sign Language sign language vocabulary is severely limited, devoid of universally-recognized gestures that provide the user with satisfactory release while avoiding the vulgarity and implied physical threat of the middle finger.
(We could also use a short-range cell phone melter device for the dangerously distracted among us, and a voodoo-style short-term leg cramper for the excessively lead-footed. Like the myriad offshoots from the space program, these inventions will most likely arise from President Obama’s global weather stability program, and so needn’t concern us here.)
To bolster our gesture repertoire, I submit three candidate signs. First, the letter “C.” A natural shape for our hand, the C is for those driving acts that deserve a mediocre rating. No one wants a “C,” but no one’s going to fly into road rage when they get one. A “C” is the kind of grade people take to heart, and vow to improve. Get it up to a “B.”
Second, the “Cut it out” sign, the scissors of rock-paper-scissors fame, held horizontally so as not to be falsely received as “peace, brother.” To be used only on young drivers we still have the responsibility to mold. Coming from me, “Cut it out” has nil effect on my own kids.
But other adults assure me they’re much more respectful outside the house. Receiving the stern rebuke of the “Cut It Out” sign from you will surely make an impact, rectifying questionable driving behaviors (like wrestling with the teenagers riding in the back seat) while they’re still malleable. I’ll gladly do the same for your kids.
The final sign is pointing at the sky. “God is watching.” Or maybe it’s your saintly great aunt up in heaven, the one who had such high expectations of you. Or that camera mounted on the traffic light. The High Point is a temporary scarlet letter tattoo, a gentle public shaming. The beauty of the High Point is that it’s a message from the community, from a higher power — you are simply a conduit, chosen for your proximity to the wrongdoer. Yes, occasionally in history messengers get shot. But it’s rare.
So let the enriched signaling begin. Raise your hand, pass judgment, and witness an improvement in driving abilities and civility. And then we can start working on our cell phone problem.
Allan Harris (apedroharris@yahoo.com) of Castle Rock is a finance manager and novelist.
