Why do men shout behind the wheel of a car? It is some throwback to the cave? Some nod to the cowboy days when we women were home keeping the fires burning and they were out on the range, whooping it up with guns and ammo?
My son calls my husband a “pioneer of road rage” and it’s true, he’s been cursing and shouting behind the wheel as long as I’ve known him. I just got back from a road trip with this trailblazer and Henry to downtown.
LA is in the midst of an insane Santa Ana. The likes of which I’ve never experienced in my twenty years on this coast. Yesterday, when I was driving back to West LA from Santa Monica, the temperature was 103. Today, as we were heading further east, it was 107. And these geniuses who say they want to run the most powerful country in the world claim there’s no evidence of climate change!
Climate change is all around us. When you live in LA, you see it every time you leave the house. The patches of parched earth where grass used to be. The giant Evergreen trees that are dead roots standing. You see it when you look at the dashboard of your car and read the temperature outside the speeding car. Henry knows climate change: when he hops up in my husband’s Beemer, he goes straight for floor, the coolest place to be in the car. And how about California! We are the first state to make it legal to break a window in a car and save a dog that is about to expire from heat. Sometimes (not today) I love California. We are also the first state to ban assembly line eggs. The chicken gets to move a little. Good for CA!
Going downtown was unavoidable. I knew what was going to happen. By the time we were fifty feet out of the driveway, I was engaged in a deep breathing exercise to release past anger and rage (when I learned about the exercise, it said nothing about present anger and rage) the breathing really did seem to help. In case a gentle reader is interested: the breathing exercise is eight sharp inhales followed by a holding of breath and a long exhale. And even though all the calm male meditation teachers will assure you that the calmer you are, the calmer everyone will be around you, this is not true if you are driving in traffic with my husband, or anybody else’s husband. I was sharply exhaling and my husband was spewing and foaming at the mouth. “Asshole!” he shouted at one car. “Cock bite!” to another. “You f’ing Mother—F-er!” to another. Why I ask, is the term Mother—F‘er the most derogatory in the language? You never hear the phrase, “Father—F’er.” And why is this? Far more men molest their daughters, than mothers molest their sons. But once again, men wrote down the language, not women.
I thought of the debate last night. How cool Hillary was, as the Trump spewed forth with his nonsense. Was she churning inside, listening to this out of control male lose it? And why is it that women are always having to keep the lid on male rage? We do it naturally. To spare ourselves, to spare our children, in the case of the very wise and elegant Mrs. Clinton, to save the world.
“Why are you so angry?” I asked between breaths. “No one is threatening your life. What’s going on that makes you so nuts?”
“These assholes make me nuts!” said he and sat on the horn for several very long seconds.
I thought back to one of the few times I have driven downtown with just females in the car. It was a few years ago. My friend Mae was here in town from New York to give a talk in conjunction with her then new book, The Lucky Ones. Our mutual friend Aimee joined us. I had printed out the directions from Map Quest. And then written my own version of them.
Take street outside of house to Olympic. Then Bundy. Take that to freeway. Get off ——-. I remember being very nervous. But it was a sweet little ride downtown. Traffic was bad but not horrendous. We got to our destination with enough time to go shopping! Afterwards we had dinner with some friends of Mae and we got home without getting lost or anyone screaming. We all remarked about it at the time. How calm it was going downtown with a woman behind the wheel. Even with me, one of the ten worst drivers you’ll ever meet.
My husband was still foaming at the mouth when we got downtown. And parked the car.
Our destination was one of those giant office towers that take up a whole city block. Henry and I walked him there, and we waited downstairs in the lobby on the cool marble floor. Henry being the genius that he is, sprawled out on the white marble, happy to have it against his fur—not the sidewalk. I wished ardently, I could do the same.
Driving home, we got lost a few times, and my husband had a couple more temper tantrums. But there was no traffic–—a miraculous reprieve. It will be a cold day in LA, before I do that again.
by 
