There are a lot of things I will never understand.
Driving home from a funeral today, stopped at a very long red light about a mile from my home.
Nice bright sunny day.
I pulled up to the line of cars that was stopped for the light.
There were two notable things about the vehicle that was stopped in front of me.
1) It was a really nice looking vehicle. I didn't take note of the make, but it was an SUV or perhaps a crossover type of vehicle. I kept looking at it because I was intrigued by the color of the paint. A really unusual and beautiful pearly white type of color that I don't believe I've seen before. The vehicle looked brand new.
2) On this beautiful paint job, were two large stickers, one on each side of the hatch, that said "FU46".
Also, on the back window were two large bumper stickers that said "Let's Go Brandon". That was heinous enough, but then I started pondering the placement of the bumper stickers on the window. They were both placed on the diagonal, and they formed sort of an upside-down "V". They were quite large, and the placement of them most certainly blocked most of the view out the back window via the rear view mirror.
There's a lot of Trumpers around here in my red pocket within a blue state, but it is rare that you see them advertise themselves like that.
So I'm sitting here thinking about this new car in front of me, with this gorgeous paint job, and the paint getting fucked up by these two stupid stickers. And how the douchebag driver doesn't have the sense to not block the view out of his rear view mirror.
And how this dumb bastard doesn't know that the phrase "Let's Go Brandon" is not merely not funny at all, but it is also a very odd saying. It doesn't make any sense. It's not clever, it's not witty. People driving around with that saying on their vehicle, or on their shirt, are just advertising how fucking stupid they are.
My final thought before the light turned green was "Stupid motherfucker is ruining his brand new car. Fucking dumb shit. How does he see out his back window"?
In my old days, I probably would have started laughing hysterically, and if he noticed me laughing, I would have given him a thumbs up so he would think I agreed with him, then I would have stopped laughing and flipped him off with both hands.
Can't do that anymore though.
Might get shot.
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I used to fly off the handle all of the time. Not physically, but I used to rage over every injustice. That changed many years ago. I'm really pretty mellow now. I made an effort to permanently instill a belief in myself that I don't have to swing for the fences on every issue.
I still of course get very angry over many things, but I'm able to handle it with sarcasm usually, rather than impotent rage. If someone really pisses me off in real life, I try to insult them in such a way that they think they are being complimented, and they don't realize they were insulted until I'm a good distance away from them.
Another thing that made me change is this. As an adult, I don't recall being in a really serious physical confrontation. I've been in a few shoving matches, and helped break up a few fist fights, but nothing like full on battles when before I was out of high school. I used to get bullied once in awhile, so to stop it, I would fight anyone who bullied me. Always. I usually lost the fight, but gained some street cred to the point where nobody fucked with me after awhile.
But as you age, you realize how fragile our bodies are, and how you can kill someone with just a slap, or a punch. Not because you're a tough person, but because you hit them just right, they fall and whack their head, and die. It happens everyday. And then, you go to prison. For what? So I really try to avoid stuff like that at all costs.
And then, add guns to the mix...
I was more of an instigator.... My mom said I could make a saint lose their mind.
Always able to defend myself thru words.... Never hit anyone.... Unless you count pegging someone in the face with a tetherball. Fortunately I stopped being a biter when I turned 5.
We'll just continue to baffle them with our brilliance, Lucky.
When they came on stage, they would turn their backs to the crowd and take 10 or 15 minutes to tune up.
During this particular show, during the tune-up period, before they played one note, rhythm guitarist Bob Weir announced to the music hungry crowd...
"Welcome to The Tower Theater. The management would like to ask that you refrain from cursing, biting, and expectorating".
Bassist Phil Lesh then says "All other forms of communication are permitted".
I like your comment about defending yourself with words. A tactic that I found works really well for me is to speak softly. It commands more attention than yelling I think.
I adopted Teddy Roosevelt's (I think) saying: "Speak softly, and carry a small nub".
Wait, that's not the saying....let me think... 
'never give time or attention to someone who's more passionate about they hate than they are in what they love.' In my youth, I would have laughed as well, but these days I just ignore their antics as little more than props on a stage. Easy habit to get into and let's me save my eye-rolls for friends and family. 
It's like they think 80% voted for Trump or something?
