Honking at my Own Risk

Remember how I have a van?

And how my van makes me really happy?

And how I keep bringing it up?

Well, you may be interested to know that I found something about my van that I don't like.

It all started last weekend when I went to run a quick errand. I was second in line at a left-hand turning lane (that happened to be in a continuous flow intersection. Raise your hand if you know what that means). When the light turned green, the car in front of me just sat there, so I waited a second or two and then gave what was meant to be a courtesy honk.

Like, "Beep! Beep! Light's green!"

Instead of a courteous beep, out came, "HOOOOOOONK!!!!!!!!!"

I was a little startled, and I panicked when the person in the car in front of me threw her hands out the window. Ack!!! She wants me dead!

Then I realized that the woman in front of me was broken down. I felt bad about the wrongness of my honk, so I got out of my car and ran up to her and - after asking if she needed help - apologized for my honk. I gave her an elaborate explanation of how I have a new van (I didn't brag because her car was pretty old and shabby, and I didn't want to rub my awesome van in her face) and how that was the first time I had ever honked the horn, and I didn't mean for it to be a HOOOOONK!!!!!! but just a Beep! Beep!

As you can imagine, the woman looked at me like I was crazy, but she refrained from stabbing me, and I at least didn't drive off leaving her to think of me as a total scumbag.

(Complete van-obsessed weirdo? Yes. But scumbag? No!)

A few days later I found myself in the same situation (but in a regular intersection, if you were wondering), but this time the car in front of me wasn't broken down. The guy just simply wasn't paying attention.

Because of my previous HOOOOOOONK!!!!!!-ing incident, I was hesitant to try the horn again, so I waited approximately five seconds for the guy to look up and notice that the light was green. This particular light happens to be very short, and if you miss the light, you have to wait FOREVER for the next one, so after the five seconds, I knew I needed to give the guy a little Beep! Beep!

I talked myself through the process. "C'mon, Britt! Last time was just an accident. You will be so light of touch this time that the horn will sound light and fluffy and totally non-offensive." So I quickly tapped the horn twice and flinched as it went BEEEEEP!!! Beep, beep, BEEEP!!!!!

I don't know how it turned into that, but it was not at all what I was going for.

So now I know... my van has a mean horn.