Adventures in the Bible Belt

This from Shaun Groves is all kinds of excellent.

She cut me off. She made a left right in front of me. I was leaving Lowe’s - the home repair store - trying to get home in time for my niece’s birthday party. She was trying to get her Burger King fix faster.

I slammed on the brakes and skid and honked the horn. I may have said a singular bad word i hopes that the Holy Spirit can not only interpret “groanings” but also profanity to be a cry for immediate assistance, please. I was scared. I wasn’t angry. Yet.

Then she moved the phone from her hand to her neck, cocked her head to hold it in place, and flipped me off with her now free hand. I came to a stop in the road - and also a metaphorical fork. And I chose to follow her into the Burger King drive-thru line.

I pulled up beside her. She rolled up her windows without looking my way. So I screamed at her about how I have three kids and a wife who could have lost a father and husband because she was really hungry for a Whopper and couldn’t wait two seconds for me to pass by before turning. I told her she wasn’t important enough to endlessly be on her cell phone. I informed her that I’m not sixteen, I’m an adult like she’s dressed up to be, and adults talk about their problems...with words not hand signals.

I told her all that. In my head. As I was rolling down my window. But when she turned toward me and waved me away as if I were nothing more than a circling fly I had a better idea. I smiled.

“Heeeey,” I said, “I thought I recognized you!”

She took her sun glasses off to get a better look at me.

“We go to the same church don’t we?” I asked.

I wish you could have seen the blood drain from her face as she rolled down her window and forced a smile.

Of course, I was telling a lie - predicated on a safe bet here in a town where almost everyone goes to church at some point in the year. And, sure, I guess that no more moral of me than if I’d shouted all those nasty things at her. But it was more fun.

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