It’s no secret that I have a temper. For the most part, I can keep myself in check. I don’t fly off the handle at strangers, I don’t make a scene in the checkout line if someone is taking too long in front of me, and I’m generally a pretty calm, upstanding citizen.
I do, however, get angry when people wrong me. I used to bottle it up and then just complain about the situation at home. But now that I’m a mom and I have someone else in my care, I don’t stand for anything.
Yesterday I took my son to visit my husband at work. Afterward, we drove to the park and took a nice stroll in the warm sunshine. On the way home, Baby Boy fell asleep in the car. It was perfect timing because he would take a quick nap and not be too cranky for his bedtime routine later in the evening.
While we’re driving, I’m rockin’ out to Linkin Park (very low volume) and enjoying having the windows down. For a split second I thought to myself that I should drive around the block to give him a couple more minutes of naptime. I decided not to and figured I would just let him continue his nap in his carrier once we were inside.
We pull onto our street and I see two landscaping trailers in the vicinity of my driveway. My anger was already starting to boil. I creep up next to them and lo and behold, the second one is parked in front of my driveway. The anger is boiling now, but I’m still containing myself. I don’t see any of the landscapers and there is a car trying to get by, so I have to move. I drive down to my neighbor’s driveway and pull in and turn around. Maybe this time someone will be in the front of the house. Nope. I honk the horn. Another car wants to get by, so I have to move again. I pull into the driveway a couple of doors down and turn around. I pull up next to the first trailer and finally see someone.
By this point, I’m fuming. I lay on my horn and start screaming out my window. Of course no one is going to hear me, they have their mowers and hedgers running. I keep at it anyway and one guy looks over. I yell and curse at him. He comes over and I scream out my window “get your f’ing truck away from my driveway!” He nods. Baby wakes up and starts screaming and crying. I drive down the road and turn around again, while trying to soothe my frightened son. He has tears streaming down his face and I feel awful that I am the reason for his anguish. He is finally calmed down and we drive closer to my driveway. There we sit and finally someone comes out and gets in the truck. Then, instead of moving, he gets out of the truck and comes over to talk to me. I roll down my window.
“I’m really sorry about this,” he says. “I have my son in the car and we need to get inside,” I say back, with quite a bit of attitude. “If you don’t mind, ma’am, we’re going to be here for another 45 minutes or so. Would you mind if I parked my trailer back in front of your driveway?” he asks. “Fine,” I mutter back. He thanked me and went on his way.
The caveat to this story is this: my neighbor is an elderly woman with many children and grandchildren. One of her children happens to be a landscaper. He owns the company. It was he who was blocking my driveway. Tisk, tisk.
I do need to keep my temper in check, especially after waking up my poor baby by screaming obscenities out the window. But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t leave my sleeping baby in my car on the street unattended while I yelled at the guys to move their damn truck.
At least I had good reason to unleash my fury on a complete stranger this time.
