Several weeks ago coming home through 4th and Rimpau in Hancock Park I barely cleared a slow-moving black Chrylser with consular plates and thus avoided getting essentially PIT-maneuvered by whoever the driver was oddly unwilling to stop through the intersection. And now this morning going the other way the driver of a new Mustang with ultra-tinted windows decides I don’t have the right of way and/or I’m not going fast enough and heads into the intersection while I’m still in the middle of it — gets the car’s nose right up beside me as I’m coasting through.
So I’m giving the unseen driver some distaste over my left shoulder and then after I clear the Ford it revs going across the rest of the intersection and I look over my right shoulder long and pointedly enough for the driver to chirp rubber stopping and drop the window. I curve around to the right and stop, too.
A round bald head pops out and asks me if I’ve got “some sort of problem?” I was expecting I don’t know… a mid/late 20-something. Instead this guy’s got to be on final approach to his 50s.
“Not anymore,” I call across. “I was just trying to figure out if you were an inconsiderate jackass or a belligerent asshole, but I couldn’t tell through the tinted glass. Thanks for clearing that up for me.”
“Ha! OK, and what’s your verdict?”
“More jackass than asshole, but not by much.”
He snorts. “Well, you’re just a dick on a bike.”
“Yep, you win. Jackass beats dick any day.”
“Fuck you!”
“Careful now. Your all asshole now. No wonder you tinted your windows so dark.”
I think he was going to say “fuck you” again but realized he’d just be repeating himself so then he just blinked at me before yanking his head back inside the car and gunning it up and away toward 3rd.