The finger

On Friday, I was cycling to work and I came to a busy intersection where the traffic moves fast. There is a huge right-hand turning lane and in this situation I just stay at the right side of the next lane over and pedal madly because the sooner I am out of the intersection, the sooner I can return to being exposed to being squashed from only one side instead of from all sides. As I'm riding along, someone honks their horn right behind me. It's really frightening when this happens. A horn is supposed to get through to another person encased in car blaring music, so when you're not surrounded by one, it scares the crap out of you. Since I had done nothing wrong I figured the car was just annoyed at having to slow down for a bike - not uncommon. So, I give the driver the finger. Then she drives up beside me, rolls down her window and my legs start to shake. Oh god. A confrontation! And at the point of maximum exposure! Well no, she was telling me that it was the guy behind her she was honking at, not me, so I flap my hand all over the place and apologise like crazy.

There are two times when I will flip the bird at a driver: when they are clearly rude or when they are probably rude but maybe not, but since I'm irritable I will interpret it as rude. This was a case of the latter. I have been trying to tell myself lately that I like cycling and I don't need to spend the entire time on my bike feeling annoyed, but if you've ever cycled in One Great City! you'll know that it is a real challenge to treat the activity as a pleasure here. Still, I have accepted myself as really not much of a finger-flipper because the feeling I get from it when it is a case of the former (satisfaction? smugness? moral superiority?) is not enough to risk the feeling when it's the latter. And this city really doesn't need any more animosity between cyclists and drivers! Anyway, I don't feel that badly about Friday - horns are maddening and scary. Maybe, instead of a horn, cars needs to be equipped with a more direct system which identifies the recipient and sends a clear message to avoid any misinterpretation or entanglement... like a hologram of a finger that appears on the person's dashboard with "YOU cut me off" underneath. Or something.