Make them stop.
Sometimes there’s so much, I don’t even know where to begin. For now, let’s start with this headline in the award-winning Concord Monitor: “Houdini’s ancestor wants body exhumed to test murder theory.”
In case you’ve lost track, the article mentions that Harry Houdini died in 1926. So how old do you think one of his ancestors would be in 2007? Oh, wait. The relative in question is actually Houdini’s great-nephew. That wouldn’t make him an ancestor, now would it?
Okay, I could lighten up a little. Anyone can have a brain cramp and insert the wrong word in a headline. And any editor, or two or three, could fail to notice the mistake.
So let’s go to something a little more premeditated. Moving away from ridiculing the newspaper itself (there’ll be plenty of time for that in the future—oh, believe me, there will), let’s consider the newsmakers. An article in the same paper begins, “Jesse James, 20, was indicted in Merrimack County Superior Court . . . .”
Imagine that. Actually, the real surprise is that he wasn’t behind bars already. What I really want to know is whether his parents have been indicted yet for aggravated felonious stupidity. I realize, of course, that Jesse was a popular baby name 20 years ago. In fact, research shows that every boy born in the United States between 1985 and 1990 was named Jesse, Joshua, or Jason. But if you’re an expectant parent poring over lists of baby names, here’s an idea: read your child’s first name and last name together at least once before you sign the birth certificate. (Do parents sign birth certificates? I don’t remember. But you get the point.) And if you think it’s kind of clever to name your kid after a famous outlaw, do everyone a favor and send him to the orphanage instead.
It may well have been one of Jesse’s parents who tried to extend me a courtesy today, and almost killed me in the process. Driving north on Main Street in downtown Concord—two lanes in both directions, for those unfamiliar with the setting—I signaled to turn left onto School Street. I was not in a hurry, and I understand and embrace the general rule in this situation: left turn yields. I would wait patiently.
For some people, however, “niceness” trumps the rules. A driver in the left southbound lane stopped and flashed his lights, signaling me to turn in front of him.
God, I hate these people. I didn’t want to turn in front of him. I wanted to wait my turn. I wanted to maintain order.
Don’t misunderstand. I believe courtesy on the road is to be encouraged. On the interstate, you move over to let entering traffic merge. In bumper-to-bumper traffic, you stop to let a car enter from a side street, or even to turn left in front of you, so long as the overall flow is not disrupted. When you arrive at a four-way stop simultaneously with another car, you let it go first.
But you don’t stop dead in the middle of a four-lane street for no good reason to let someone make a left turn across two lanes of traffic. I don’t know where people get the idea that they can just go around doling out favors to their fellow human beings with no regard to the rules.
I’m not a rules fanatic. Many of you are familiar, for example, with my view that stop lights should be treated as merely advisory. But here’s the thing: there are 6.6 billion people in the world. When there were only a few hundred, rules were less important. With several billion, it’s a different story. We need order.
(Back to the traffic lights for a minute. I’m not being inconsistent here. Obviously, a red light should be disregarded only when there is no conflicting traffic; but it must be disregarded in that situation, or life has no meaning.)
The guy who thought he was doing me a favor apparently didn’t care so much about the driver behind him, who had to hit the brakes, or the driver to his right, who would have to do the same if I accepted the offer to cross in front of him. Of course, one can’t get out of the car and explain this. The best one can do is throw up one’s hand and mouth the words, “Keep moving, you moron!”
In the ideal world, I would have pulled out my Smith & Wesson and shot out the overly polite driver’s tires. When the cops arrived, I would have explained, “He disrupted the essential order.” They would have said, “Oh, of course. Thank you for protecting the order,” and that would have been the end of it.
But of course that’s not our world. In our world, cops—and judges—aren’t so flexible. (How I learned this is nothing you need to know about.) Which is why I leave the Smith & Wesson at home.
As it was, feeling obliged to accept the favor, I reluctantly darted across both lanes, barely avoiding the guy who screeched to a halt in the right lane—and who undoubtedly cursed me as a reckless maniac. Somehow, I came away feeling that I was at fault. Maybe if my parents had named me Jesse James . . . .
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Preserve the essential order. Forward The Johnston Papers to a friend.
