Tailgating is the same as shoving

Here’s an odd compellation of thoughts for today.

The first is a compellation within a compellation: a combo of my classic sexism and passive aggressive driver’s rage. This week I have been driving over each morning to feed a dog that my beau and I are monitoring, and I mention this only as an excuse to say that I have been cooking a special meal of fried beef hearts daily for this dog-faced dog.

Anyway, so in my drives I have noticed a disproportionate number of aggressive tailgaters, which is not surprising since I think that I have blogged before about the mean drivers in the higher income neighborhoods and snooty shopping centers (fountains, so many fountains) in this area. What was surprising about this particular crop of tailgaters is that they were distinguished looking older men in fancy cars. I’m not so removed from the wonders of Hollywood that I don’t understand that 50 is the new 40 and that business men will behave as frat boys in spite of their silvery manes, especially when they have fancy foreign cars. But these old men were driving (lattes in hand, the sissies) as though they also ate beef hearts and greens for breakfast every morning.

Here’s where the sexism comes into this: I find this more offensive than when some girl with bug-eye sunglasses and a graduation tassel hanging on her rear-view mirror tailgates me. Tailgating is like shoving, only more cowardly because you tailgate people that you won’t dare shove in real life. I will continue to be sexist and offended when an old fellow who should know better goes around shoving people who are the lady-like two-door hatchbacks of humanity.

Other thoughts…I thought that I had other thoughts when I started typing this…

Okay, well, on then to reflections on the art of retail. That’s right, retail. I am doing it and I won’t suffer any flack from anyone about the supposed dignity of the college degree. Degrees, I wager, have slightly less dignity these days than old men. So, appeal to me with your questions about sensible shoes and not a damn thing else. My early prognostic is that retail is like working in an office, but with more bending.

Oh, now I remembered my other thought. It’s one that I’ve been having for a few days but since I had that weird rash of posts about coffee shops I decided to defer mentioning it until I had some variety. In my tour of local coffee shops I noticed that old ladies often have coffee dates with all of the whimsy and leisure of being retired.

These ladies meet up to talk about their families and their health, two topics that would annoy me in the mouths of the midday Starbucks mom’s but I find perfectly acceptable in this instance. The difference is that these old ladies speak quietly. So I guess that the theme for today is that old men are losing it, but old ladies are keeping it real.

Final thought, and then I’m done. I am, despite my high handed statements, back in a coffee shop. I can’t help it! At home I was tempted to try to give myself a Gibson girl hairstyle; I needed to get out of there if I was going to get anything done today.

And for punishment of my hypocrisy, the music in here is like a twang-y acoustic death-match between Dave Mathews and some lady-loser of the same genre. Ack.

Also, I think it might be in Spanish.