But Maybe I Have More New Yorker in Me Than First Suspected

I've thought long and hard about posting this story because it's not exactly a NICE story and it's hard to imagine Pollyanna ever doing this...

But, you know, I'm all about keepin' it real here.

So, okay, my latest New York Driver Tease is to just be EXCESSIVELY polite in traffic. It makes me giggle.

You can just picture me, right? I let people into traffic with elaborate flourishes. When someone lets ME in (as if) I practically get out of my car to say thank you. I signal. I stop all the way at stop signs. I let the school buses go ahead of me--nothing freaks out the people in my neighborhood more than that.

Dudes, I'm like a Stepford Driver.

And the people up here do NOT know what to do about me and my good manners.

Witness the other day in front of Jane's school where I played this elaborate game of, "After you." "Oh, no, after YOU." "Oh, I INSIST. After you." with this guy in a little sedan. He could NOT figure out how I was planning to screw him over by letting him go first and it apparently short-circuited his brain.

Finally, he turned in front of me and as he passed me, he lifted both arms in total exasperation.

"A**hole," I said, angrily.

Wow, maybe I really AM becoming a New Yorker.