When I was a cover guy I used to cover a route that had a really busy residential street a few miles long with no shoulders. During the late afternoon/early evening when people were coming home from a crappy day at work they would get all worked up when I was delivering that stretch of road because they couldn't go around me until there was a break in traffic the opposite direction. Guys would yell all sorts of obscenities out the window while driving past. I went through the three stages: At first I'd give dirty looks, then went through the stage of yelling back and letting it ruin my day. Finally I realized it was best to smile and wave. Made me feel better and pi$$ed the jerks off to no end.
I have a road like that with no shoulder where I can either park in the road and walk off the stop or turn on my 4-ways, swing wide into the oncoming lane, and back into the driveway I am delivering to. Either way I am holding traffic up and inevitably some bozo winds up flipping me off/honking/shouting obscenities etc. for having the gall to get in
his way. I too have learned to just shrug it off. One time I had a particularly obnoxious road-rager give me the trifecta (horn, finger and friend-bomb) as he went around me on this road; what neither of us knew at that moment was that
my next stop was for him. 3 minutes later I pulled into his driveway and recognized him as the guy who had just been a jerk to me; and when he saw me his eyes got wide as he assumed I had showed up on his property to retaliate. I grabbed his package, got out of the truck, and all 275 pounds of me started marching towards him with a very forceful stride. My shoulders were all puffed out, I got a mean look on my face and I stared him right in the eye. I had about 4" and 100 lbs. on him and boy was he scared! I walked up to him.....handed him his package....and then smiled and said "have a nice day, sir" in a soft and gentle tone before turning around and walking back to the truck. As I drove away, I even honked and waved and hollered "thank you!" in a cheerful tone of voice. He waved back with a dumbfounded look on his face. I'm pretty sure he might have peed himself a little. It was beautiful, and a perfect example of how we should always respond to anger and road rage by being the bigger and kinder man.
