This morning I had to go to Lee Valley, and when I was getting off the highway exit ramp I noticed that some guy in a small black car was following me CLOSE, REALCLOSE, like, I could basically hear him breathing. I’m not a good driver to begin with, and when someone follows me too closely I get very nervous. I know other people would probably get pissed off and deliberately slow down and make rude gestures, but I always want to just pull over so the person can go around me and harass someone else already, and leave me free to drive the speed limit without feeling any guilt about it.

Anyway, once off the highway there was a traffic light, and it turned out that we both needed to turn right at the light. This particular light has kind of an access ramp that feeds cars turning right so that they only have a “yield,” and don’t need to come to a full stop at the light. But I am not a confident merger — I like to wait until there is a very, very big gap for me to ease the van into. And, I was already nervous from the close follower. So I pulled into the right hand turn lane, but I felt that there wasn’t enough of a gap for me to merge just yet, so I stopped, and waited for a nice big gap.

I know that a more confident driver probably would have been able to just merge already. And that my failure to merge into multiple slots of questionable (in my opinion) size would anger some people.

But man, did the guy behind me in his little black car ever get PISSED OFF. He started honking and honking. He was saying stuff, and years of watching professional sports on television has given me the ability to read lips for any and all swear words, so I understood him perfectly. He was honking and waving and swearing and it really was not helping me feel any more confident about merging, I can tell you.

So I tried to pull forward as far as I could into the small merge lane, and then I waved at him to go around. But instead, he just pulled up as close as he could behind me and kept swearing and such.

It was freaking me out, I have to say.

Eventually the light turned red the other way so I pulled forward. I expected Mr. Frantic to go racing around me in the other, completely clear lane, but NO, he followed right on my tail. Less than a block later I had to turn right again, and SO DID HE.

Then I got really freaked out!

I took the immediate next right into the Lee Valley parking lot, and I really thought he was going to follow me and get out and try to confront me. Like seriously, what do people get out of that? It happened to me once before that some guy who thought I was weaving too much on the road while driving behind him FOLLOWED ME HOME, to MY HOUSE, where I was unloading my CHILDREN in the driveway, to lecture me.

And this kind of behaviour helps them resolve their issues HOW, EXACTLY?

Anyway, Mr. Frantic wound up speeding past me at the Lee Valley entrance, honking AGAIN and giving me the finger to boot. I was pretty happy to see him move along, let me tell you.

So I went into Lee Valley and bought a lovely Christmas gift for my mother-in-law (we are seeing them for the last time before the holidays in a couple of weeks, so I have to shop now). I came out and loaded Little Miss Sunshine into the van and drove off.

I turned out of the Lee Valley parking lot and took my first right to get back on the highway and you know what?

THE SAME GUY WAS BEHIND ME. Right on my tail.

It was like some sort of Quentin Tarantino B-movie horror flick!

I don’t think he was lying in wait for me. I hope not. But man, is that freaky, or is that freaky?

So we went around the block together and came to the exact same light where we had the merging incident and I crawled to a stop so he could go ahead of me into the left-hand-turn lane. Then we turned and he got on the highway going east, whereas I was going west, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

(I think maybe I don’t get enough drama in my day-to-day life. I just wrote a thousand words on a two-minute traffic kerfuffle. Yipes!)