Two Stories (Again!)

One

Regularly I'm not a violent person. Really. But today something happened that made me want to do spectacular, bloody and painful things to people. Well, not people. Just two, actually. Comng home slightly late from work, I decided to stop at the McDonald's drive thru near my place for a quick takeaway (if it's one thing about the big M, it's that I've never ever contracted food poisoning from their food). As usual, it being late and all there were already several cars ahead of me, but I didn't really mind, since the service has always been quick. So when there were only two cars in front of me (and my tummy was grumbling rather loudly at this point) a motorcycle came around from behind and approached the counter. This in itself was nothing irregular, since some cyclists routinely use the alley to make a quick U-turn back into ss15.

However, I started to get curious when the cars ahead of me seemed not to move for quite a long time. When I was able to inch my wheezing Kancil a few inches ahead, I saw the reason for the delay: the cyclist and his pillion had cut the queue and were ordering from the drive through counter. Now call me anal, but I was more than a little miffed simply because:

1) As I drove past the motorcycle spaces I noticed most of them were empty, and the main dine-in counter itself was rather deserted.

2) The fellow cut the bloody queue (DUH!).

3) He took his time ordering AND paying.

4) The Drive-Thru lane means exactly that: it's for bloody driven vehicles!

To add further insult to injury, the bastards didn't even bother to fake an apologetic air, or even a placating wave! I'm a firm believer of the Traffic Apology Ritual: look back and raise your hand in a gesture of apology, and I'll be fine. Really. Even though I know you don't mean it, that particular gesture goes a long way to soothing a stressed drive. So maybe this makes me a wuss, but life has so many other troubles to waste brain cells on than getting angry at the driver in front of you, so this is acceptable.

What happened just now, was not.

So after several hours stewing about it in my head, I've come to the conclusion that I was angry simply because it didn't make any sense for Mr Macho Cyclist to come to the drive-thru window, for the reasons I mentioned above. With the ample parking for cyclists available, he could have parked the cycle and popped in and out in less time than it would have taken us to move 6 inches. The counters were nigh deserted and still he chose to cut off two (three including me) other cars. Anyway, either Malaysians were feeling nice this evening or they were just too chickenshit but the drivers in front of me went on as if nothing was wrong (although I did notice the satria driver in front of me had his hands full with his girlfriend pawing his face every few seconds).

I guess I'd not notice someone cutting the queue as well if I had a girl pawing my erm, body parts. So there it was. My reason for the slight discomfiture early this evening. I don't know if the gods of irony were working overtime, but on the way back (after finally getting my ValueMeal) I was stuck behind another Satria with the female passenger literally all over the driver.

Man, I need to get myself a satria.

Ash.ox out.