She needed her coffee

Saturday, 10:53 am

By Kate

After I dropped the lad off at the bus for his track meet this morning, I zipped on down to Dunkin Donuts. Now lets see if I can explain this—there is an intersection right by DD. Three lanes and the right lane is, traditionally, the Dunkin Donuts lane. There was a woman in the car next to me, in the middle lane. She was all agitated, talking forcefully and pounding on her steering wheel. The light was red and she crept forward with impatience. I crept forward, too. She inched forward a little more and kept up with her animated discussion and steering wheel pounding. I got the impression that she was going to rocket when the light turned green and cut me off.

Which she did. So I made a quick turn at the intersection and cruised in to the Dunkin Donuts side entrance—into the drive-up line. By anyone’s standards, I Was There First.  She saw me and really got agitated. Being a Massachusetts driver, I nosed my car as close to the last car in line as I could. I figured she’d cave before hitting me. But no. Being a longer term Massachusetts driver, she backed her car up and moved it over about a foot and brought the nose of her car so close to the bumper of the car in front of me that she effectively cut me off. It was quite a smooth move. I tip my hat to her.

Screw it, I thought. I drove around everyone in line, parked in front of DD and went inside. Three people in line. I got my coffee within a minute or two of walking in the store. And passed some pleasantries with the staff who know me rather well. As I walked back to my car, I saw the angry woman still several cars back in the drive up line.

Ooh, I thought. This is too good to pass up.

So I got in the car and drove around the drive-up loop again. When I came to her car, I stopped beside her, raised my coffee and smacked my lips. She glared daggers and grenades. As I put my car in gear and started to drive off, I saw her pounding on her steering wheel and yelling. Whatever her issues were this morning, I still got my coffee first and didn’t have to act like a total jerk to get it. Maybe just a little bit of a jerk. I mean, really. A truly mature adult would have walked out of the store, climbed in the car and just driven off.

But it just felt so good to raise my coffee cup to her. It really did.