Neighbors, or Why I Hate California

I was driving down my street this afternoon when I noticed a young woman waving her arms and shouting something at me. I parked in my driveway, and went to see what she wanted.

She said she was telling me to slow down. She then proceeded to instruct me on the need to be careful of children and animals while driving, that she was dubious about my ability to stop in time to avoid hitting one of them... apparently at my high rate of speed.

Driving as I do, with my eyes open, I had noticed that there were neither children nor animals on the street. (Her two dogs were leashed and on the sidewalk beside her.)

My speed: 20 miles an hour.

When I informed her of this, she declared that the legal 25 mph speed limit was insufficiently slow.

Annoyed at this conversation stopping non sequitur, I snarked that I’d lived on the street for over 20 years and somehow managed to avoid killing anyone so far, and stalked home.

When I got in the house, I realized how pissed I was. Stupid, of course. But it's quite annoying to be flagged down like an unruly teenager by someone half one's age, lectured to about the safety of animals and children as though it's never occurred to one in 40 years of driving; and instructed on the inability of the law to determine safe speeds...because on a clear, sunlit day, on a straight suburban street, devoid of children, animals, obstacles or impediments, one drove at 20 mph.

Actually, I guess I do know why I was so irritated, now that I think about it: Her self-righteous sense of the moral virtue of her absurdities and the assumption that she has the right to chastise others—as though she were the first human being that ever had concern and compassion for children and animals...because she's a very moral, caring person.

It's just so goddamn familiar.

I have no doubt she believes global warming is a bigger threat than radical Islam; that war never solves anything; and "profit" is a dirty word. And that anyone who disagrees with her is a genocidal, racist, xenophobic bigot and a money-grubbing capitalist who hates the planet.

Sigh.

The Gunslinger