I was reminded this weekend of how it was to be 17. At the time I was certain I knew everything and that the rules were for everyone else. I was bulletproof, and often imagined myself with super powers of strength and intellect. The older folks were just ‘getting in the way and slowing things down’. I was a Young and Stupid Arrogant Jerk.
I still think the same way about the rules, but I am now fully aware that there are things I know, things I don’t know, and things I don’t even know that I don’t know. I am sure that, at some level, this indicates my maturity. I am also fairly certain that by this time next year I will look back upon this point and reflect of how naive I was, as I always do, during times of reflection.
This last Friday night, as I walked away from a neighbor’s house where my two young children were playing, a van came screaming into my cul-de-sac. One of those old panel vans that were popular in the 1970s. For the record, it was gray. The driver was fairly young (I am guessing 17-ish), male, and unfamiliar to me. I watched as he sped past me, going obviously fast for an inner neighborhood, and much too fast for a road that was about to end in a very tight u-turn.
My concern grew as he swirled around without so much as a tap on the breaks, whipped past several young children out playing in the street, and headed toward me. I checked to make sure that my children were well out of the way, and scooted across the street toward safety. As I did, I gave a friendly double-palms-down international sign for ‘slow it down a little’.
And that’s when it happened; Young and Stupid Arrogant Jerk reared his naive and careless little head.
With his window already rolled down, he lifted what appeared to be a casted left hand in an apparent attempt to flip me off and shouted ‘Speed limit is 25!’ He then slammed down on the accelerator and peeled around the corner and on his way in a brazen display of carelessness among a neighborhood literally teeming with children.
As I heard his engine strain through my neighborhood and out of my site, my 40-something mind reverted to my teenage super powers and I flew after him, reached into his open window, grabbed his pencil neck and slammed him to the ground. All the while explaining in no uncertain terms that I don’t appreciate him putting my children’s life in danger, and that the reason we moved to a cul-de-sac buried deep inside a quiet neighborhood full of children was to avoid Young and Stupid Arrogant Jerks like him.
I also imagined a couple of lessons I could teach him involving his good arm and a few tricks that even Jack Bauer wouldn’t do unless the cameras weren’t rolling.
Stay out of my neighborhood you Young and Stupid Arrogant Jerk. Grow some respect for others and get a grip on the fact that one small slip could turn your speeding van into an accident that no one wants to see happen.
