Do I look like I'm negotiating?

You know the familiar catchphrase, “one step forward, two steps back”. Well yesterday here in the Big Smoke, for every attempt made to progress, a retrograde performance was achieved. I actually took myself off of the road and revoked my own driving privileges for the day.

A young man carrying a child, perhaps as old as two, was attempting to cross a very busy Eglinton Avenue at around the same time that I was driving that 10 kilometre, 45minute drive from hell to my tennis game. The man was walking slowly, waiting for the traffic to stop in both directions of a very busy four lane roadway. Once traffic did stop, like musical chairs, (only in cars) I happened to be the vehicle in the man's direct path. (The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.) This predicament made me the object of his contempt. He came right to the driver’s side window (me) banged on it with his fist and thanked me. I can only assume he was being cynical for he had to walk around my vehicle, all 3 feet of it, to cross the street. Did I mention he was a big man; a big black man to be precise; holding a small impressionable child. I couldn`t help myself and since I was waiting at the red light anyway and I had automatic windows, and I was in a really pissy mood, I rolled down said window and yelled, “TRY USING A CROSSWALK NEXT TIME`` And with that the rather large black man holding a small, impressionable child turned to me once again and said, "Open your fucking eyes lady". At least he called me lady. My anger immediately turned to concern for the child.

What I need is a system similar to that of Homeland Security only my system will give a “road rage alert level” where the potential for both pedestrian and road rage can be determined with a colour coded travel advisory road rage scale. I`m working out the finer details but in the meantime, I am going to design a personal bumper sticker and place it in the general vicinity of all of those scratches and dents my vehicle has had to endure to survive on the roads of this fair city. The statement will be brief but will adamantly relay to all of those drivers out there jockeying for position and hindering my driving performance on my daily 10 kilometre commute to my tennis destination. It will simply say, "DO I LOOK LIKE I`M NEGOTIATING?"