'Law of the Garbage Truck...With A Twist of Liz"

Saturday, February 27, 2010

I received a Blog today from Charlie's cousin, David, who writes a daily blog called RealTexasBlog.com in which he had a story called "Law of the Garbage Truck".  Great story; and caused me to think how helpful something I've been doing for years might be for you.

Years ago, when I was having to drive an hour to work each day in Dallas traffic, I saw myself transform from a female version of Dr. David Banner to the Incredible Hulk each day as I fought rude drivers who would cut me off, make me angry, cause me to shake my fists and yell......by the time I got to work, I was so worked up and angry it actually helped me sell more insurance!

UNTIL......one day, a guy cut me off, causing me to slam on the brakes to narrowly miss him which, in turn, caused me to make the transformation into my Incredible Hulk mode............but then he lifted his hand to show me he had a gun.   Oh ya, pretty much stopped me in my angry tracks and taught me a lesson.  The lesson being, is it "really" worth getting worked up, angry and possibly shot over??   So, I came up with a solution that has worked ever since.......Feel free to use this strategy in your own situations...

I found that when someone cuts you off in traffic; drives too slow in the fast lane or stays glued to your bumper, that if you'll follow these few easy steps, not only will you laugh your way home, but they will actually "Thank You" for inconveniencing them.  Here's how it works....

1)  The landscape truck full of illegals enters the highway, never looking to see that you occupied that lane first.  This forces you to "move over" or get "run over"....Now, your fighting mad.....

2)  Don't get mad.....get even.  Pull up even with the driver of the landscape truck and stay even with him until you successfully get his attention.  Once you have his attention, get a horrified, shocked and scared look on your face (you know....hands on your cheeks....eyes wide open....) and frantically point to the rear of his truck/trailer.   Key word here is "frantically"!!  Don't do it in a mean or angry way, cause he'll just dismiss you, but one that says "I genuinely care about you and something REALLY bad is happening at the rear of your vehicle" type look.

3)  At this point, he will immediately look in his rearview mirror to see what you are seeing, but won't see anything.  He will start slowing down, pulling his vehicle over to the side of the road, all the while waving a "THANK YOU" to YOU!  Oh ya, that's my FAVORITE part!

You have now successfully gotten the jerk off the road, caused him some down time as he tries his best to determine what it was you saw falling off his truck, allowed yourself time to get WAY ahead of him and, the icing on the cake, you laugh yourself home instead of increasing your blood pressure.   This works EVERY TIME!!!

Use of this strategy works on truckers (fire in the rear of the trailer??); on the highway race car driver (flat tire???); the SUV soccer mom (something just fell out of the rear window of your Tahoe??)....well, you get the idea.  I find myself actually getting  excited when someone does me wrong on the highway; the anticipation of whats to come........

Now go; drive the highways and byways and get angry NO MORE.......