A Dutch Menace on American Roads

I think that angry, angry blog entry has stood up there long enough. Thanks to all who left comments (except uber-bitter Anon 2... yikes... quite a lot of vitriolic crap to throw at person you don't know, don't you think?) and, please know, that now that I'm here in the States, my disposition is as sunny as the weather and I am emotionally worlds away from that last blog entry.

Tomorrow, my parents, M and I leave for a road trip to Illinois to see my aunt and uncle. But first, a story from our first week here in the US.

M and I spent last weekend in Norfolk enjoying a visit with friends, exploring my former hometown, and gorging ourselves on seafood. All in all, it was a pleasurable weekend. (thank you Frau Erkelens and Mama Ellingsworth for spoiling us)

Saturday afternoon, after some Oysters Rockefeller on the beach, M and I headed to our much-needed massage appointments. M wanted to drive, so I tossed him the keys of our rental car. After easing out of the parking space, we made for the exit. My friend Cherise was in line behind a pickup truck and an SUV pulling a boat. All three cars were waiting to exit the parking lot. M looked at me and said "Are we waiting for Cherise?" to which I replied "no." Next thing I know, our car whips to the left (toward oncoming traffic), whips back into line, and Cherise is eating our dust. I look at M in horror and say "What the #$%! are you doing?" He looks at me innocently and replies, "Uh, weren't they all parked? I just got around that line of cars so we could get out."

No, sweetie, they were ALSO waiting to get out and you just cut everyone off.

Cultural Note: He's not a jerk. He's just Dutch and everyone drives VERY aggressively over there.

We pulled out into traffic and I say, "Okay... you gotta know, you can't be that aggressive over here. Take it easy... be relaxed... we all tend to be pretty polite in traffic... especially at the beach."

A few minutes later (after one rolled through stop sign: "Baby! You have to stop at those!" M: "Even when nobody's coming??") we near the massage school where our glorious, much-needed, much-talked about massages were going to take place.

Me: Oops, we're in the wrong lane. We're in a turn-only lane. You need to get over one.

M: Okay, should I turn my turn signal on now?

Me: No, no... you can wait until the light turns green. Then you can ease into the other lane.

Five seconds later, we get a green light and my sweet, mild-mannered, mechanical engineer boyfriend suddenly morphs into a Nascar driver. He hits the turn signal and slams his foot down on the throttle. The tires squeals, the backend fish tails slightly on the rain-soaked pavement, and I grip my seat and scream at him (for the second time in 15 minutes) "Oh my God! What the @%#! are you doing??!!!!"

Mistakenly, he thought "easing" into traffic meant "gun it off the line so we can get ahead of the guy beside us." Unfortunately, that guy was also in a turn lane and by the time we realized he was turning onto the highway entrance ramp to our right, we'd hit the side of his car. No, correction. M had hit the side of his car. I was busy rolling my eyes in white-hot fear like a spooked racehorse.

Now, to give him credit, M only scratched the other guy's car. And, also, he explained to me that in Holland, if you turn on your turn signal and wait patiently, it's more of an invitation to the other drivers to never let you in. You MUST gun it off the line or you'll be waiting there all day. (it's true, they're very rude drivers.)

But I did look at him and say "When I said "ease" into traffic and "don't be aggressive," what exactly did you think I meant?"

You'll be happy to know that after the VA State cop came (M tried to shake his hand and the guy looked at his hand and then at him like he was escaped psychiatric patient), we did make it for the last half hour of our massages.

I feel SO relaxed.