Honking Never Got Anyone Anywhere
Perhaps I am a bit naive. Perhaps I have not yet realized the real power of the car-horn-honk-to-move-traffic. I grew up in the country. There was no traffic, and no one ever used a horn unless some ass hole cut them off, and more often than not it was just a bird that got thrown out. Now I live in a big city and there is a lot of traffic, especially outside my window. You see, I am too poor to live in one of the nice brownstones around the corner; luckily enough I am not so poor as to be forced to live in the real ghetto. Instead I reside on a second floor right close to the ghetto. The only thing between me and the ghetto is a high way that gets jammed up every morning and every evening. I also live on a t-intersection of two one way streets that lead to the constantly jammed highway.
All in all I am thankful for this paved barricade, but it is the people that travel this barrier that really start to bother me at about 6:30 in the morning. Now I did not know this, but apparently, when you honk your horn, it makes traffic move. Now I am not talking about a short toot, I am talking about a five second blare. People seem to think that if the light is green, they should be moving, and usually they should be, but they seem to forget that traffic on the other side of the intersection has also stopped, and there is nowhere to go.
Unfortunately for me the honking is not just a morning/evening thing - it is an all day thing. People will honk if the person in front of them has failed to gun their vehicle .5 seconds after the light has turned green. Typically it is taxi’s, but many other inconsiderate fucks get caught up in this also. Because that .5 seconds matters so much.
I have lived here for two months - give or take - and I have been good about keeping my mouth shut when I am out walking the dogs. I do not yell at the cars, or say anything, I grit my teeth and curse in my head. That was until a few days ago. I yelled at the cars. In particular a fat Italian man laying on his horn at the unmoving traffic in front of him. Again, it was one of those long honks, and I lost it.
“Shut the fuck up. Stop fucking honking. Traffic is stopped. There was a fire, you can see the smoke ass hole. You aren’t going anywhere so stop fucking honking.”
He did not respond, he just looked at me funny, and stopped honking while the guy two cars back started honking. I was rather pleased with myself.
