Monday, March 31, 2008

That's it! Nobody fucks with (name redacted)!

It was Friday evening, and we were stuck in the weekend rush to vacate the city, our small, white Suzuki struggling to weave through traffic, seaking out the path of least resistance. Finally, once on the Palisades Parkway, we settled into a comfortable cruising speed of approximately 65 mph.
Suddenly, from the front seat, I'm startled out of my revery by my father-in-law screaming, "Jerk!" He believes that the SUV behind us has put on his brights and is intentionally bothering him. He pulls over into the right lane so the SUV can pass - it's a BMW SUV with a license plate that reads MY2BABES.
In retaliation, my father-in-law puts on his own brights and rides the ass of MY2BABES, demanding to know, "How do you like it? Jerk!"
Minutes later, we pass the SUV, and I think, finally, the pissing contest is over. Little did I know, it had only just begun.
Brights glaring, MY2BABES nudges onto us until it's literally inches from our rear bumper.
"Motha' fucka'!" my in-law yells, and pounds on the gas.
The Suzuki speeds up...70...80...95...103 mph. We're weaving through traffic and the asphalt buzzing by beneath the car is making my spine vibrate. I look out the back window...MY2BABES has kept up with us the entire way.
My in-law jerks the car over to the side of the road, thinking that the SUV will continue on its way. No such luck...MY2BABES has pulled up behind us and is sitting there, ominous, its high beams illuminating the inside of our car.
"Motha' fucka'," my in-law reiterates, and peels back out onto the busy highway.
Looking back, MY2BABES is hot on our tail. Suddenly, I jerk forward in my seat as my in-law slams on the break, obviously in an attempt to scare MY2BABES (and, honestly, copying a move another car had done to us a few weekends previously when we had ridden that guy's ass at 80 mph with our brights on, again in retaliation for the other driver's having his brights on behind us at one point). Luckily, this particular idiotic stunt does not land us in a 20 car pile-up. We speed up to regain our ~100 mph velocity.
I now begin yelling our warnings, because the highway is starting to back up - we're approaching the round-about. We hit several cracks in the road, and our small car shutters. Slowing don to a mere 75 mph, our tires squeal as we enter the circle. I stare out the back window, hoping MY2BABES will be taking a different exit than we - but the lights continue to glare into our car.
Seeing that his insane speeds are doing nothingto deter the SUV, my in-law changes tactics - he slows down to 35 mph...the Palisades, at this point, is a single lane highway. Still, MY2BABES refuses to pass us.
Up ahead, we see the flashing lights of a police car. My in-law pulls over to the side of the road opposite the officer, forcing the SUV to abandon its intimidation. It finally passes. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Suddenly, I'm jerked back in my seat as my in-law, once again, takes off after MY2BABES.
By this point, I've become completely convinced that we were going to die. I'm screaming at my in-law, telling him that this is foolish, that this is just some ridiculous, testosterone-fueled pissing contest, that he needs to stop being stupid and realize that this was dangerous, and it's one thing if he was alone in the car, it's another when he's got his son and his daughter-in-law, and when we got up to the house I was KICKING HIS ASS!
We signaled to pull off the highway at our exit, and lo! MY2BABES was getting off at the same place. We approach the light at the end of the off-ramp, and signal, finally going our separate ways.
As we are sitting side-by-side at the light, I look over and see that the SUV's brights are off, and that one of its normal headlights is burnt out. He had been keeping his brights on so that he wouldn't get a ticket for having a headlight out.
The moral of the story? How the hell should know? I'm not an adrenaline junkie, and would be happy if my entire life passed without something like that happening again.

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