The Polite Lunatic in the Car Over

It always amazed me how Mom could go from screaming lunatic to a polite woman in the world when pissed at us kids and having to answer the telephone at the same time. As telephone become less frequent in households, being replaced by the cellphone, I figured it was an art-form that would soon be dead.

Yet, one recent afternoon as I was driving in town, I pulled up to a stoplight and looked at the woman driver to my left. She was carrying on a heated conversation with no one in the car, screaming and gesturing with her hands, obviously angry at someone.

Suddenly, she looked at me, catching me staring at her. She smiled, and rolled the electric window down on the passenger-side of her car, “I’m yelling at my son – we’re on cellphone,” she politely stated in the sweetest tone imaginable.

All I could do was smile and nod my head as she rolled her window back up and commenced with the screaming and gesturing. Obviously, the ability to go from lunatic to polite woman will never go extinct as long as there are children to yell at and strangers to be nice too.