Merry holidays!

In the spirit of New Year, New Me, I’ve resolved to write blog posts more often. It’s now January 10th and this is my first one so I think it’s pretty obvious how well that’s going.

Though one behavior that’s improved dramatically is my road rage. For such a small person with a fairly charmed life, I have a terrible temper. This has only gotten worse since my cancer treatment. There are many, many survivors out there that see every day post-cancer as a blessing and greet every day with a smile. Cancer taught me that life is too short to deal with other people’s bullshit. This is only made worse when I hit the road and have to deal with the multitude of morons lovely people who share the road with me. Why is it so hard to drive correctly? If only there were rules one could learn to accomplish this.

For Christmas, I asked for and received a dash cam. It’s a lovely dash cam that streams to your phone but also has a memory card in it so you can save all of those miles and miles of footage. Strangely, this has dramatically reduced my road rage. The simple fact that I now have tangible proof of other drivers’ constant and continuous mistakes quells the red hot fury within me. Though it’s not just drivers! The dash cam has a near panoramic lens so that the completely hypothetical bicyclist who insists on inconveniencing everyone by riding on the four inches of shoulder when there’s a perfectly good bike lane twenty feet away that will keep them safe and away from cars is now on camera. Hypothetically. *glares*

Or the hypothetical middle aged white male pedestrians who make gestures towards me but drop their arms and look straight ahead when I cut my eyes towards them. You’re on camera! Hypothetically. *evil grin*

My kids have even made a game out of it. If you slam on your brakes and turn in front of me without signaling (hypothetical black SUV), my kids yell, “DASH CAM!” If you drive 25 in a 35 then speed through a 25 (hypothetical white truck) we all yell, “DASH CAM!” If you weave over the yellow lines while going 30 in a 45 (hypothetical blue compact), a chorus of voices will cry out, “DASH CAM!”

In all sincerity, I’m nearly drunk with power: the power of proof, the power that I’m right, and the elation that comes with such righteous vindication has the odd side effect of quashing the anger, the road rage.

Go ahead, cut me off. Flip me off. Drive in the bike lane and weave over the yellow line.

DASH CAM!