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Two years or so ago, some imbecile passed me in a mid-size of some sort(it was night, so make and model unclear) about 30 mph over the speed limit. No big deal, just another fool the cops would catch eventually...
-Until he began slowing down, past even my gas-saving '5 MPH under the speed limit' speed, until I was nearly tailgating him-whereupon the driver then began to slam on his brakes several times in succession, forcing me to do likewise or crash into him! Naturally I slowed down some more...
-And so did the other driver. At this point we are headed down a 55MPH road at 30MPH or so, with the idiot slamming to a nearly full stop every ten seconds or so. Who WAS this lunatic and why was he attempting to force a crash with my helpless little Festiva? Did one bite the fool as a small child or something?
So I pulled out my cellphone and started snapping pictures whenever the driver hit the brakes. Later review of the photos showed a mid-nineties Mercury sedan of indeterminate color (night) and the plate numbers.
Naturally the driver figures out i'm recording and burns rubber away from me...problem solved, conflict aborted.
Not. Two miles later, as I slowed for a light, my windshield was assaulted with a bag of stale fast food and a large soda, nearly causing me to veer into the ditch. The Mercury driver (medium height, broad-shouldered slightly obese, dark swarthy complexion with mustache and receding hairline) had parked his sedan and waited for me-again, WHO WAS THIS NUTJOB? The fast-food assault was followed by screaming in some thick, gutterral language I was completely unfamiliar with, followed by frenzied waving of a tire iron in my direction....
Everybody has their breaking point. This was mine. I fumbled in the darkness for the first rigid unyielding object I could find my-tire iron being in the trunk where it belonged-and vaulted out of my seat with pure, seething intent-
At which point the screaming lunatic with the deadly weapon, easily twice my mass and probably more experienced in a fight, screamed like a little girl, ran back to his car and took off like the Legions of the Damned were after him, smashing one headlight into a traffic sign and missing some poor woman in a VW Golf by inches.
Okay, that was NOT the reaction I expected, so I looked down to see if I had magically turned into Godzilla or something-and was visually reminded that I had just purchased a beautiful 'new to me' chainsaw at the flea market that afternoon.
Oh.
I gave it a pull-it started up on the first try. And here the owner had thought it needed a new starter!
The Sheriff's deputy thought it was pretty funny (I suppose it was in retrospect, at that) and asked me half-jokingly if I had any more 'deadly weapons' at hand. I just pointed to the Ukulele I had also purchased that day and allowed him to draw his own conclusions about its implied deadliness.
I never did find out who that horse's ass was...the car turned out to have been reported stolen. Guess i'll never know.
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