I was genuinely enjoying the drive down Pacific Coast Highway until that asshole in the powder blue Lamborghini nearly killed us.

It was Sunday, around noon, and the sunlight was jumping off the waves like popcorn kernels exploding in hot oil. It was a quintessential Southern California moment – an oceanside highway, dark sunglasses, a sea breeze carrying the inimitable scent of decaying seaweed in through the window. The only spoiler was the vehicle. Seems to me PCH should be cruised in a convertible red Mustang or an old VW bus, not a grey minivan with a child’s car seat in the back and Cheerios wedged between the seats. Alas, these are the elements of cool we sacrifice when we become parents.

Somewhere near the intersection with Malibu Canyon Road a loud rumble began to overpower the sounds of waves crashing and seagulls screaming overhead. If you could hear an earthquake coming before it started, it would sound this way.

“What the hell?” I said.

“Danny!” Hot Wife said, motioning to the back seat with a nod of her neck.

“I mean ‘heck!’ What the heck!”

I saw them in the rearview mirror: a convoy of Lamborghinis, each painted in a different shade of “Look at me! I have a wee little pecker and a terrible habit of sabotaging my personal relationships, but maybe this loud car that costs more than your entire life will make you think I’m like bad-ass or something!”

Although it is very well known and heavily traveled, PCH is just two lanes in each direction. That makes for frequent traffic jams and frustrations. Knowing that Lamborghinis are born to drive fast, I meandered over into the “slow” lane to let the convoy pass without incident.

Zzzzzzzzoom! Zzzzzzzoomzoomzoomzzzooom! Zzzzzzzzoom! It sounded like fucking Le Mans out there.

There must have been at least 30 of them, maybe more. The kids stared out the window, mouths agape.

“Look at that one!” my son said, pointing. “It’s orange!”

After a minute or two, they were gone.

“Very nice,” I said.

And then…

ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzoooom! Errrrrrrrrt!

A straggler driving a powder blue Lamborghini sped up, chilled for a second because I was next to him and there was another car in front of him and about half a car length ahead of our minivan. Half a car length!

Then it was as though he said to himself, “You know what? Fuck it. I’m going for it.”

And he went for it.

He sped up and cut right in front us. I had to hit the brakes to avoid clipping his back tire and sending him into a death spiral right there in front of David Schwimmer’s house.

In an instant I engaged myself in an almost existential debate.

The younger me – the one without kids and a wife and a vasectomy scar – would have chased that Lamborghini to the next stoplight, gotten out of the minivan, open the driver’s side door of the other car and beaten Tom Thumb until his hairplugs cried for mercy. I was a man, and that’s what men do: we pound on people who are weaker than us.

“Hold on a second there, bucko,” the older me interjected. “You’ve got kids in the car. Suppose Tom Thumb has a gun or a knife or a mechanical pencil in that Lamborghini. Do you want them to see you die?”

“I’m not gonna die,” the younger me said. “Don’t be such a puss. I don’t want them to see me die, but I also don’t want them to see me be disrespected without sticking up for myself.”

“Because?”

“Because…because…because I don’t want them to think being disrespected is OK!”

“Oh, I see. So the lesson here is that every time someone does something rude to them, they should beat that person up?”

A pause.

The old me continued, “Come on, Danny. Keep it together.”

Ugh. I hate when the old me wins.

A few moments later, the powder blue Lamborghini was stopped on a red arrow, presumably turning left to follow the other Lamborghinis to the 2008 Pretentious Asshole Convention somewhere up in the canyon. Since we were going to continue south, we had a bright green light.

As we passed him, I rolled down my window, stuck my head out into the breeze and shouted, “I’m gonna blog your ass, motherfucker!”

“Danny!” Hot Wife said, flabbergasted by my profanity in front of the children.

“Oh!” I said, mortified. “Sorry, kids. What I should have said is ‘I’m gonna blog your butt, motherfucker.’ Your butt.”

Comments

Cars like that are SUCH an extension of a small penis. You nailed that. Real men drive minivans.

ROFLMAO....well, look at the bright side.

Twatsicles aren't reproducing if they're too busy driving Lamborghini's like assholes.

Your stories always remind me of something that happens in my life! I just love the way you write!

I too am a member of the Snip-Snip mafia, as well as the Mini-Van Drivers of America. Should this be an elite portion of the mafia? The VanSnips perhaps?

Anyway, driving is the worst time for me regarding language and the kids. It used to be a time of solice and freedom, where I could speak my mind and teach all of 'those damn kids' a lesson in how to drive. Or at least give them a verbal lashing they would never forget. Mainly because they would never actually hear it. Now that I haul two impressionable toddlers around however, my tirades are limited to mere utterances and hushed swears. Occasionally my daughter will catch a bit of one and say, 'What was that daddy?' To these inquiries I usually reply, 'I said that nice person has a nice car.' While I don't think she usually believes me, she at least knows enough to stop asking. I can't wait until they get older so I can swear with impunity, and then tell them its the wrong thing to do.

As if driving a powder blue Lamborghini wasn't embarrassing enough.

That guy is going to be google searching powder blue Lamborghini for months.

little penis motherfucker..who does he think he is...
You are right though..when the kids are in the car..I hate when hubby does his "flash the bright lights" and gets up all in their trunk.. I always tell him "what if they have a gun and go apeshit on us"....

you know what? That SAME EXACT line of cars was in our way driving down Marina Street about 2 months ago. The kids were freaked to see that many identical, little tiny cars driving down the road in a line. I just kept thinking "man. you have the car AND you have to be in a club? wow, that's lame." We haven't gone minivan yet, but hey, a camry's close enough.

xo.

I call myself a Recovering Righteous Rider. I use to say that people who drive in a maniacal fashion (or even just a slightly inconsiderate fashion) needed a note on the windshield, a note in the paint of their door, or a note on the flesh of their cheek, because they were violating a norm that required enforcers, like myself, when law enforcement was absent. "How dare they flaunt their Nietzschean aloofness in front of my resentiment-ing nose!"

But ever since I found out my daughter was on her way (she's 9 months now), I've been in Recovery. I still feel the righteous indignation toward those who take advantage of the State's monopoly on violence to swagger, insult, and endanger the rest of us; but I am ZERO-percent inclined to do anything about it that would risk her safety, my safety, my freedom, her opinion of me, my car, etc.

But man, sometimes....fuckers.

I think the fact it was POWDER BLUE is enough to show this guy has more issues than you've listed. Who the hell ruins a grunty car with that colour?!

So, did you actually see whether the driver was male? What if the driver was a woman? How would your reaction have changed?

“I’m gonna blog your ass, motherfucker!”
ROFLMAO---I can so totally picture this. And then when you changed it to "butt"---that was classic.

I have found that line "I'm going to blog about your ass" to be wholly ineffective. Now I know why. Add the motherfucker, that'll do the trick. Excellent.

wondersis-
love that thought....and you have to be in a club too,.at 52 I have little restraint at laughing out loud at men in expensive cars...so many male ways to say "i feel inadquate"

I am so freakin' jealous of your punchline. As a fellow blogger, I "get" that there is nothing more powerful than a line like "I'm gonna blog your ass motherfucker."

I might just blog your ass motherfucker on my blog to recommend your blog. Ya follow?

MH
www.undomesticdiva.com

Grey is so blah. I much prefer silver.

While I broadly share your views on this matter, I am concerned that you specify "powder" blue. I do not understand this because I am not a girl. I understand blue. I have no fucking idea what colour "powder" is.
Please keep things simple.

Great post - even though Bossy kind of lost track of what you said after Vasectomy Scar.

I once rode a bike down the PCH. Forget about being a member of the SSM - I was a member of the "I can't feel my nuts" mafia for a few days after that.

The first time my kids heard me drop the F-bomb it was in a similar situation (sans auto)with a bottom-feeder individual. The kind who frequents trailer parks and brushes his one remaining tooth every other week. Anyway...my kids were older than yours are now and yet had I begun screaming at this miscreant in fluent Chinese, I don't think it would have floored them more than hearing "you f*cking asshole" come out of my mouth. Good times.

Hey profanity isn't recommended in front of the kids, but sometimes you've got to let loose. I've been there DGM.

That should be a bumper sticker : )

muahahahahahahahahah!
that's classic...

Love the v-scar comment. It's a must in my house.

Classic!

Ok, now close your eyes. Now picture everything you just described. Instead of Lambos, it's Harleys. Instead of the beauty and tranquility of the PCH, next to the soothing sounds of the Pacific lapping against the California shore, imagine the sound of a thousand katydids punctuating a sweltering Alabama day mixed with the odor of freshly mixed tar. Now picture every last Harley that passes you, with their ridiculously loud "mufflers," has on the back of it a fat, aging woman, with leather chaps. And all of them have cut you off.

I fully expect my son's first word to be "assmunch."

Same shit happened to us on the freeway today. 5 lanes of traffic and the asshat can't just stay in one of them. Noooo, he has to weave in and out of the cars leaving about a 1/2 inch between him and everyone else he cuts off. I was hoping we would witness him blow a tire and fly off the side of the freeway into the traffic below.

Is that mean?

Without my usual boatload of exaggeration - that happens at least a squillion times a week here in Massachusetts. If you can't get out at a light and kick some 'butt', get your kids some earplugs for the ride....

Ah yes, I remember a time when I issued a "Son of a..." at some ding-dong who had just cut me off, and though I pulled up short (literally and verbally), from the backseat piped up my darling 2-yr old daughter, "...bitch."

I would have thrown a loaded diaper at his windshield.

Because my new older self is much less controlled than my younger self.

I blame peri-menopause.

I grew up in Gatlinburg,Tn. It's a resort town that is the gateway to the Great Smoky Mtns. National Park. We get a lot of these "rally club" groups. They get a mystery map with road directions, but don't really know where they're going until they get there. Returning home to Atlanta from a recent visit to Tn., about 40 Deloreans passed me on the narrow winding country road I use as a short cut to the interstate. I got to the "T" intersection where I turned right to get on I-40, and they were supposed to turn left to go to Gatlinburg by way of the winding road. I laughed for a good 3 minutes while the last 11 in the group, who had dropped behind, missed the turn and roared off in the wrong direction.

Great post. Except I can't get the thought out of my head that David Schwimmer was standing by his window hoping for the car to crash. Crash = cameras = David Schwimmer mentioned in the news. That seems like a broad assumption to make, but that's how I roll.

Maybe he was pissed that the Lambourgini he was driving was a very prissy powder blue?

ahhh the mechanical pencil line killed me! bahha!

fuck. road rage is a freaking national pass-time in britain. no joke. and it's like it *sanctions* the old man to hug the bumper of some asswipe who cut us off or something.

me. i prefer to stalk the bastard and key him in the parking lot.

Seriously though who owns a powder blue Lambourgini. What a freak.

Maybe it was Eugene in the powder blue Lambo WITH a mechanical pencil LOL

We were visiting Disneyheim 2 years ago, and we saw some ass that had beached his Chrysler 300C on the center median right in front of the Disneyland entrance, obviously while trying to make an illegal u-turn. So we had our windows rolled down, big Suburban full of 8 of us (4 kids 4 adults) and my son, who was 3 at the time, yells out the window "LEARN HOW TO DRIVE, JACKASS!" It was so funny we flipped a bitch and had him do it again!