Sorry sir, just trying to turn left.
Last month, I was asked to do a task on the way home from work that turned into one of the most harrowing of my coming-home-from-work career. A lot of times, it is to pick up something at the grocery store, or to get gas in my car, but this task, while much the same as the others involved much more rain and one of my least favorite things in the world. A left hand turn.
Nothing bad ever happens when you turn left.
Most people do left hand turns all the time and for that, I applaud them sarcastically. It is a brave, courageous thing that very few can master. I don’t know what it is about left hand turns, but I will do four right turns, cut through a parking lot, find a portal from another dimension, or even parallel park before I will take a left hand turn. I’m not talking about one that has a specific green arrow just for them, or a left turn that has a specific middle lane in order that gently guide you toward your destination. I’m talking about a no holds barred, pre Y2K fearing, jumping off a building type of left hand turn where you don’t have a light and traffic is coming from two directions and you have no center lane to camp out in.
Sometimes when you are going to training, you might need to turn left.
To me, this is the equivalent of the moment right before you jump out of a plane to go parachuting, except you don’t have the parachute and there isn’t the exhilaration of flying. You might as well put me in a pit of starving snakes that have a craving for a pizza flavored human. The fact that I could at any moment be crushed by two cars or create a 50 car pile up are all in play when I dare make that type of left hand turn. I was never sure why left hand turns made me so bitter until I got older.
Then I realized that it was because I hate confrontation. It’s the reason why I let everyone else in my family use the remote before I take it. It’s why I don’t play huge multiplayer online video games. It’s why I don’t go to Star Wars on December 18th, or wear San Antonio Spurs gear to a Seattle Supersonics basketball game, or why I don’t go to Black Friday sales(I say it’s because I don’t need a $100 100 inch UHD 4K TV, but why would I not want a TV that I could see a show about space from space really clearly?).
One time, when I was driving home in my first brand new car, someone behind me ran into my bumper. It was only about 5 miles per hour, and it didn’t end up causing any damage, but I never pulled over. I just didn’t want to confront the guy, so I just pretended like it didn’t happen.
Don’t you hate it when you bumper gets tapped?
But really this has just been a bitter plan from the beginning and why you better not mess with me. But really, I’m just setting you up for my one big, bitter season of Revenge. One of these days, when you least expect it, I’m going to be like Bruce Banner and someone is going to set me off and I’m going to channel my rage, and I’m going to take back the remote control and there is nothing any of you will be able to do about it.
Someone will tap my bumper, and I will go all Hulk on them, and insist that I see their license, registration, and proof of insurance, please.
Someone at a Black Friday Sale, will attempt to try to take a TV from me, but I will throw down the mighty Hammer of Thor and request to speak to a manager about this gentleman is making me a little uncomfortable.
You just never know what will happen when you turn straight.
Someone at a Spurs-Seattle SuperSonics game will yell at me that I shouldn’t make my 1 year old daughter wear such atrocious Spurs basketball gear to a playoff game in Seattle. I will Rage Against His Machine and yell at him that the Spurs actually have a .506 winning percentage on the road this year and when facing a 2-1 in the playoffs on the road have won by 4 points 13 times before, so historically they have a 65% chance of winning this game. Oh, and also you actually don’t have a team anymore because they moved to Oklahoma. He won’t mess with me ever again.
So enjoy your time of non-confrontation with me. Because you never know, you might be in the next car when I use my blinker to indicate that I’m taking one of those dangerous left hand turns.
FEAR ME!
ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH
Bitter Confrontational Ben
Ben's Bitter Blog 
The state of Michigan is full of people just like you. We don’t have killer left turns. We turn right, then make a u-turn around an island to complete the left turn. Doesn’t make better drivers; just allows for more creative types of accidents.
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And that is what I’m all about. More creativity in accidents.
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I hate left turns too. With a HUGE PASSION!! I will go around the block, take another route unless I really HAVE to. I just don’t like them. Great post! Showering your blog with glitter!
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I’m glad that you agree with me on left turns, however, just so you know, my blog is glitter proof, so it just repels it back on you, which is good since you seem to like that so much.
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I can just imagine the Hulk’s fists of fury somewhere between Pike and Pine. 🙂
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Sounds like you are talking Downtown Seattle. It would be fun to do a little Hulk Smashing in Seattle.
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Downtown Seattle it is. 🙂
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You’d think I would know more about that place considering I don’t live more that 20 miles from there, yet I’ve only been there a handful of times in my 15 years here.
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I worked downtown for a number of years. The left turns were murder. . .
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That sounds awful. Those one way streets and $80 parking spots are the worst.
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Honestly love your brilliant bitterness Ben! So entertaining!
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Well, its something that comes pretty naturally, since I was born with bitter genes.
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I don’t drive and this is making me even more leery of it. lol However, I will take tap into my inner Hulk and learn anyway, left turns and all.
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Yeah, stick with other people driving if you can. Other drivers are pretty annoying.
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This morning I discovered my rear driver-side blinker light is not working. I take that as an excellent sign to make no left turns (until it’s fixed, that is).
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N0 rush to fix that. Wait until a cop comes along to tell you to fix it, then pull out your Chaos badge and he will be in so much fear of you that he will fix it for you.
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I’ll do something similar to that. I’ll go home and bat my eyes and say, “Daddy, will you fix this for me?” Done.
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You have your dad wrapped around your little finger…I know the feeling I would do that for my daughter too.
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I like to think of it as a mutual friendship.
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Exactly. He would want his really good friend to be getting arrested for having a light out on her car right?
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Somehow I doubt it…
But the good news is, if I never turn left, the police will never know about the light being out…
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And who would ever want to turn left right?
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Right!
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I don’t have much trouble making the car turn left. Making it turn straight up or down, now, that’s a real pain. I’m not fond of directions calling for that.
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Yeah even my car has a little trouble going straight. It always pulls slightly left.
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Love the bitter passive-aggressiveness in your words!!!
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I am a bitter passive aggressive expert. At least I’m good at one thing…
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In Australia left-hand turns are really easy.
Just a little something extra for you to be bitter about.
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Ugggh, I forgot all about the rest of the world. You guys have left turns easy! AGGGhhh!
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I do make left turns all the time, but admit that I, too, prefer right turns.
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They are just so much work and stress, I prefer to do anything else but them.
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It took me a little while to realise you’re in the US- I was wondering what heathen corner of the UK you were living in!
Where I come from, the roads are wide enough for 1.5 cars, passing spots every couple of miles.
Bike beats pedestrian, car beats bike, truck beats car, tractor beats truch, cow beats everything and shits on your bonnet.
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Yeah, just here in the states where everything is backwards and not metric. Basically we decided to be different than everyone.
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I would love to watch you go all Hulk on someone! Thanks for the good laugh.
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And I would love to go all Hulk on someone. If all my strength was taken from bitterness, I would be the strongest guy in the world.
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I find it amusing that you don’t like confrontation yet you are so bitter. I am bitter and constantly find myself being confrontational because of it. It’s not always fun but I feel I am doing my service to America as a Bitter Being.
Also, funny story, I used to be friends with Pauley Pirette from NCIS before she became a huge star and refuses to talk to me. I once drove in her car with her and she refused to make left turns either. She would just keep making right turns until she was headed in the right direction.
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Why were you driving around with her? Were you guys headed to the morgue?
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Ha, ha! Very funny! Actually, she used to sing for a rock band that was rehearsing at the studio my husband worked at so she gave me a lift to meet my husband. Seems a lot more boring.
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I know, I’m super hilarious. So clearly her rock band failed and she ended up just doing a stupid acting gig for the highest rated show on television. She’s probably super poor and wishing she did could rock like you.
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Let’s just go with the morgue.
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Let’s not go to the morgue. Seems like a place that doesn’t have much of a night life.
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We have left turn arrows where I come from. I was so annoyed when I visited Los Angeles and they did not.
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Leave it to LA to not have something like that so they can contribute even more to the worse traffic in the US.
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Exactly.
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I will do four right turns, cut through a parking lot, find a portal from another dimension, or even parallel park before I will take a left hand turn.
Loved this line, loved this piece. Hilarious. Thank you for wrenching it from your twisted mind.
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It’s a wonder I ever get anything out of this bitter mind at all. He is kind of lazy and doesn’t like to tell me stuff very often.
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Well, I hope you continue to take notes when he does take time to speak.
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I often forget to take notes, or end up writing notes that don’t make sense. Though he is babbling a lot.
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This post has me thinking of one of my favorite going off your rocker movies, ‘Falling Down’ with Michael Douglas. We all have our breaking point, I surely hope I’m not the one behind you when you finally crack Ben. I have similar fantasies about going postal one day – this was just great. 🙂
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I often worry that I will have my ‘Falling Down’ moment and end up going to jail for 20 years to life without parole. I think writing this blog probably keeps me from actually doing it.
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Lol, I understand that feeling as well. Then again, at least we would have a better idea about why you did it.
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I love that movie so much because his descent to madness is completely understandable as you take the journey with him.
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Given the right circumstance, any one of us could turn into that guy on any given day really.
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No joke. It’s a good thing most people actually think things through first or there would be a whole lot more of those situations.
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I’m already that guy twice this week…
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Except hopefully you didn’t shoot up any buildings.
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I’m still at the bat stage…
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So…you’re Batman?
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If you don’t shut up, you’re about to find out who’s “batman”.
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*Hides in the shadows*
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This was hysterical. I think we may be distant cousins or something…I’ve never been to a Black Friday sale in my life, and if there is no left-turn signal—I’ll just continue driving straight until I find one or until I can turn around and convert it into a right-hand turn! Looking forward to your “Hulk” blog report!
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I have been to a Black Friday sale once and it was the Wild West Frontier. I thought there was going to be gun fights and blood spilt all for a razor scooter that was 3 years past its trend date. I was a Ninja and grabbed it before I ended up in the dogpile.
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I’m not crazy about left hand turns either, Ben. In fact, the car seat usually crawls up my butt crack when I attempt to make one. That goes double if my wife is driving because the likelihood of impact has ratcheted up four notches on the passenger side.
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My bitter rage starts to come out when I actually have to do one. I just grip and hold on for dear life when someone else is trying to take one.
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