I need a glass, er, bottle of wine...

So to begin my day with, I had to go to downtown to the Cook Convention Center for jury duty. For my friends who don't live here...this is not a good area of town. Parking is limited and well, let's face it, the very diverse population that is Memphis isn't always a positive environment (just saying, since we are on that top 10 most dangerous/crime filled cities).

So it starts at 9. I get downdown at 830 and am STUCK in traffic. As in can't move. So I sit there (wearing a turtleneck sweater and boots--no breast or ankle comments for me today thank you!) in my car, and I mean, the sketchiest of the sketchy people are walking on the sidewalk. Okay, I drive a pretty nice car now. So when these people start crossing the street, looking in my car, bend down on the sidewalk to look in, I get a little squeamish. I'm like, what is going on?! It's like, they dredged up the projects. Are all of these people going to jury duty? I can't even explain how bizarre the scene was. Then I realized that they were all crossing the street to 201 Poplar...which is our court/police department building. Hahaha, figures...these people are probably ones that I will be a juror for in February.

Jury duty wasn't too bad today, they just sat us down, explained how it was our civic duty, and called out weeks for us to serve. I got some good quality people watching done.

So THEN I was going to lunch today from my work. I usually go to Schnuk's for the salad bar. So my building is on an arterial road in Memphis known as Poplar (yes, where 201 is...but much further away).

So the light from Poplar in front of my building is basically a four-way stop sign. EXCEPT for the people coming from Poplar. It makes sense, because if it backs up, major traffic jam on Poplar which is no fun at all! So I'm at a stop sign waiting to turn left to get to the light. So the cars coming from Poplar are crossing in front of me. Well OBVIOUSLY I can't go anywhere with cars coming.

Tell that to the freaking moron behind me!

Cars that come from Poplar sometimes don't know that they're not supposed to stop, so they pause, then the light bulb goes off, and they tear across the intersection. So I never go even if they pause, cause it's only a matter of time before they slam on the gas and into me.

So I sit at my stop sign. The lady behind me honks her horn. I raise my hands as if to say "Nothin I can do!" Then a car pauses, then goes. The woman behind me then lays on her horn a bit longer. Seriously? Then a bunch of cars start going through...so she LAYS on her horn, like, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH (I don't know how to type a horn sound?!) So I whip my head around and try to do the sign "They don't have a stop sign!" Yeah, cause she understood that? It's like when somebody lets you in and you wave and say "Thank you"...they can't hear you, they are in another car!

So then the light ends, but people are still turning right into the building entrance, doing the pause then go thing. So she now stutters the horn in between long honks. I mean, this went on for over a minute. I'm getting SO annoyed at this point. I already had to spend the morning with a bunch of incompetant people, do I really need to be harassed by one right now? Then I see her get out of her car.

She approaches me and I GLADLY roll down my window. Now mind you, I've had people try to confront me before about stupid stuff and I'm always very polite. "Well, I'm sorry m'am, but they don't have a stop sign there"

No no no, not this time. I was highly irritated. And hungry. And tired. Not a good combo woman.

So she walks up, yelling profanities and pointing her finger. When she leans down and gets her finger in my face, I lost that last thread of sanity. I think I turned red and steam came from my ears.

"M'am, your horn is not going to make a stop sign appear in their direction, meaning there is NOT one there right now. So get your hand out of my face, calm the f#&! down, and get back in your car" and roll up the window. She knocked on my window again--and I'm pretty sure she called me a few choice words before she walked away, but whatever, I was right.

Then I had my chance to turn, so I did. But do you have any idea how much I wanted to just sit there to piss her off anymore?

Anyways...thought y'all would appreciate my day as a true Memphian...hanging out by 201 and getting into a traffic altercation...AWESOME.