{"id":2428,"date":"2012-03-30T10:51:27","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T14:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/wpblog\/?p=2428"},"modified":"2012-07-15T20:10:49","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T00:10:49","slug":"my-first-taste-of-road-rage-by-melissa-r-mendelson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/my-first-taste-of-road-rage-by-melissa-r-mendelson\/","title":{"rendered":"My First Taste of Road Rage by Melissa R. Mendelson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tango of the Road Rage Drivers began on Yahoo! Voices with my first Road Rager on Long Island in 2004.\u00a0 We were turning on Veterans Highway, heading for the Northern Parkway when this driver, whoever they are, decided to let loose and go Road Rage.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t know me, but they did everything to try and kill me.\u00a0 And the stories from 2004 to 2011 now became a self-published book on LuLu.com, but that first experience was not my first.\u00a0 And it unfortunately may not be my last.<\/p>\n

It was 1997.\u00a0 I had just broken my arm working in a blue-chip cookie sort of place located in the mall near my home.\u00a0 It was closing time.\u00a0 I had gone into the walk-in refrigerator to grab a carton of Snapple when the girl that I worked with decided to wash the floor.\u00a0 I stepped out, slipped, and fell.\u00a0 Amazingly enough, the Snapple bottles didn\u2019t break, but my arm did.\u00a0 I had no idea when I struggled to stand, but the look of horror on her face was more than enough for confirmation.<\/p>\n

It was during the summer.\u00a0 My boyfriend at the time, Dave, drove me around and took care of me.\u00a0 He even took me to the emergency room for my arm, but what he didn\u2019t realize was that our relationship was coming to an end.\u00a0 I would soon be leaving for Long Island and never coming back except for short visits at home, but before that would happen, I would accompany him on errands.\u00a0 And on one of those trips, I encountered my very first Road Rager.<\/p>\n

I hate Newburgh.\u00a0 To this day, I fear going there.\u00a0 I had to go to the Social Security Office down by the water, and my brothers joked, \u201cHave fun crossing bullets over Broadway.\u201d\u00a0 Even during the day, that place makes me nervous, and back in 1997, it was no better than today.\u00a0 And it was during the day when that Road Rager came flying down the road, heading my way.<\/p>\n

Dave and I had just entered Newburgh.\u00a0 We were on one of the major roadways.\u00a0 He was looking for something, something for home, maybe a vacuum.\u00a0 He was minding his own business like so many drivers do when these two women tried to cut him off, and they kept trying.\u00a0 And he didn\u2019t let them, and they danced, swayed back and forth.\u00a0 This went on until we reached a red traffic light.<\/p>\n

An angry brunette snapped out of the passenger-side.\u00a0 The next thing that I knew, she was trying to open my door.\u00a0 She slammed her fist against my window, trying to break the glass, and she did it again.\u00a0 And as she raised her hand one more time, Dave jumped out of the car and confronted her.<\/p>\n

I could hear the screaming behind his car.\u00a0 I nursed my broken arm, pulling on my lip, and unsure of what to do.\u00a0 There were no cell phones back then.\u00a0 I lowered the rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of the other woman, who remained behind the wheel, gripping it tight.\u00a0 I started to move the mirror down further, hoping to catch their license plate, but then her eyes met mine.\u00a0 And they were just as dark, just as angry as the other woman, who shoved Dave, and Dave shoved her.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what made them leave.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t turn around.\u00a0 I listened to the screams, the swears, and the hatred, the Road Rage.\u00a0 Then, that woman jumped into the car, and the car sped away, flying like a bat out of hell down the road.\u00a0 And Dave got back inside, shaking to his core.<\/p>\n

We found a place to stop at, and he called the police.\u00a0 The cop questioned me too, but neither one of us had any answers.\u00a0 We gave a general description of the car and the two women, and the cop said that there was nothing to go on.\u00a0 If only I had gotten that license plate, but I was afraid to get out of the car.\u00a0 I was afraid to look in the mirror.\u00a0 I was afraid, never realizing that this would be my first encounter of Road Rage.<\/p>\n

What do you do in a situation like that?\u00a0 There was no rhyme or reason.\u00a0 They wanted to cut us off, and Dave didn\u2019t let them.\u00a0 There were other lanes.\u00a0 They had other options, but they chose violence.\u00a0 They chose to attack, and she went after me like a predator to a prey.\u00a0 She wanted blood, and she almost got it.\u00a0 But for what?\u00a0 What?\u00a0 To feel good about her meaningless, pathetic life?\u00a0 To be a hero when she was surely the villain?\u00a0 All she succeeded in doing was giving me the memory to write this story, and here it is, written for you to read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tango of the Road Rage Drivers began on Yahoo! Voices with my first Road Rager on Long Island in 2004.\u00a0 We were turning on Veterans Highway, heading for the Northern Parkway when this driver, whoever they are, decided to let loose and go Road Rage.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t know me, but they did everything to try […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,200,219],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2428"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3194,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428\/revisions\/3194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}