ROCKET SCIENCE —
1 When waiting for an accident to clear off the parking lot of traffic known as I-75/85, an hour late for your first job interview in weeks, do not succumb to that specific urge, the one that tells you to pick out the nearest dump-truck driver and make faces at him, including the one where you put your thumb to your nose and waggle your fingers.
2 When the dump-truck road-rager shoots you the bird, do not claim that his face is your steering wheel and then begin punching your steering wheel. And do not simultaneously shout, “I hit you like this! And this! I dare you to come over here!”
3 When the dump-truck road-rager exits his vehicle and walks through stopped traffic in the direction of your car, do not leave your doors unlocked nor your windows open. When he screams at you and threatens to break the glass of your driver’s side window with one punch, and when he describes to you how he’s going to kick your mother-fucking ass if you ever get the courage to get out of the car, just hold your hands up, surrendering to his anger, and say through your window, “Hey, hey, easy there. I’m chill, I’m chill.”
4 When traffic begins moving again, and you time it just right so that you cut off the dump-truck road-rager while going 75 mph, forcing his lumbering piece of shit into the emergency lane, do not follow the maneuver with rearview-mirror taunts in the spirit of “Hahaha, you stupid mother-fucker, I beat you! I beat you! Hahaha! You suck ass!” This will only antagonize the road-rager.
5 After cutting off the dump-truck road-rager, do not, under any circumstances, slam on your brakes, assuming he will care whether he runs into the back of you.
6 When the dump-truck crazy mother-fucker of a road-rager rams into your car and forces you into the cement wall dividing northbound and southbound lanes, do not lose consciousness. IMPORTANT! You must remain conscious in order to escape the vehicle, not so much because it might be on fire, but because the road-rager is coming after you, like Jason in his hockey mask. Break the glass of your windshield if you must — anything to escape your vehicle, and the road-rager’s mindless wrath.
7 When the dump-truck road-rager chases you with a gun through six lanes of speeding, swerving traffic, do not back down now. Instead, stop at the line dividing the fifth and sixth lanes of traffic and challenge your nemesis to a “tight-rope competition” down the lane divider. This should distract him from killing you, at least for a second. Walk on those long dotted lines, hands outstretched, as though there’s hot lava below. Walk as far as it takes to lose him.
8 When the road-rager collars you and uses his brute strength (not to mention his gun) to force you to lie face down on the hot pavement of the interstate, and the cops close all northbound and southbound lanes in an attempt to save you from this total psycho, tell the road-rager everything’s going to be OK, that the choppers above mean nothing — they’re just pretty birds, that’s all.
9 When the dump-truck road-rager tells you how he’s just sick and tired of all the bad drivers out there and how they seem like they’re out to get him, do not, under any circumstances, bring up his less-than-stellar driving habits (not to mention his butt-ugly truck). Instead, actively listen as he tells you his troubles: the overdue mortgage. The troubled teen daughter. The wife who takes him for granted. The stripper who keeps calling his cell phone. And the traffic. The goddamned, mother-fucking, stink-ass, stupid traffic.
10 When he says, “Fucking city planners have ruined my life,” do not intimate that you were once a city planner before getting fired, that you know any city planners, or that you might know someone who knows city planners. Instead, agree with him. Say, “Fucking A, right.” But most of all, just lie still.
11 When the cops arrest the scumbag road-rager, but witnesses to the accident and attempted murder try to pin the blame on you and your driving, do not antagonize them with claims that they, too, suck ass at driving, or that they might be part of a grand road-rager conspiracy against you personally.
12 And finally, when the head cop tells you he’s going to haul you in for questioning, do not criticize the choice of tires on his cop car as being “sort of feminine.” Also, do not threaten to sue the cop if he doesn’t take you to your job interview “right this very fucking instant, Pinkie.” And do not, under any circumstances, kick him in the shins. Cops are very sensitive road-ragers.
This column was previously published in Creative Loafing on June 26, 2003.
Jamie Allen is an Atlanta writer whose column, Rocket Science, appears occasionally on Fresh Loaf. To read more Rocket Science columns, click here. He’d very much like you to visit The Duck & Herring Co.’s Pocket Field Guides website, which he edits.
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