Grumpy Old Women vs Road Rage

In a few short hours, I will turn 37.

I have been with my DH for 18 years. I have friends I can say I have known for 10 years, 15 years, and a handful who have known all my dirty little secrets for 25. Ample evidence of my impending dotage, you say.

But it was a near rumble in the carpark of my local supermarket last month that really brought home my advanced age.

I'd just finished the weekly flagellation that is grocery shopping with Child # 3, my 4 year old. Loaded her, and the mountain of crap that my family of five consumes each week, into the 4-WD people mover. Cranked the beast into life, chucked it into reverse - only  to be blocked in by the pimped-up, bitumen-scraping, doof-doof music mobile that screeched to a halt behind me.

The window of the offending vehicle slid down, revealing its barely adult, male, driver who sported enough bling to burn out my retinas, and his similarly attired side-kick. They looked REALLY pissed. They looked, in fact, like two enraged bull ants. They began yelling - not at me, but at a guy who'd just pulled into a parking space two along from mine - Captain Solo, I shall call him.

The bull ants and Captain Solo proceeded to engage in a heated debate, right there in the Woolworths car park.

First topic - who cut off whom back out on the roadway, and therefore deserved to die;

Second topic - who should depart post haste to their country of origin, the bull ants being of Italian extraction, Captain Solo looking kinda Chinese.

Thus it went, for a minute or two. Captain Solo, even though out-numbered, would not back down. To the bull ants, this was akin to a slight aganst their (barely-there) manhood. They leapt from their car and swarmed towards the Captain.

This is when I got grumpy. Serious, eye-rolling, "I-don't-fucking-believe-this" grumpy. 

This did NOT happen in my sleepy little suburb. 

This did NOT happen in the presence of my four-year-old.

This did NOT happen when I had frozen goods slowly thawing out in my car!

I clicked on the central locking (hey, the red-mist was not that thick that I didn't remember to do that), opened my window, and yelled like the mother-of-three that I am:

"You had all better settle down, RIGHT NOW, or I'm calling the cops! We don't need this shit around here. Bugger off and go home!"

Not so eloquent - but it did the trick.

The piano player stopped mid-tune. Tumbleweeds rolled on by. Several pairs of eyes swivelled my way.

The bull ants stopped and gaped.  Then dropped their eyes to their shoes.

"Sorry," they mumbled. Then jumped back in their car and peeled out of the carpark.

And since I once was a lawyer, didn't I just follow them down the road for a few kilometers, just to make sure they really were outta there, and to take down their number plate. (g)

Never would I have done this in my 20s. But I'm a realist. I know it was not a show of heroism. I was just plain cranky. But as I get older, I see that cranky has its place. Maybe it's the fact that the older you get, the less time you have on your side. You just don't have the tolerance for crap that you once would have had. 

I don't know.

But I tell you, it felt damn good to scare off two punks simply by impersonating their mothers. (vbg)