Driving in Chicago:
So yesterday, I was shuttling my kid and one of his teammates from one hockey game in Willowbrook to Fifth Third Arena. About 4 pm. On 290. Hell.
At Mannheim, there's always stoppage. And there is a big merge from those coming in from 88 and 294 and Mannheim. It always turns into a big parking lot with a guaranteed 10-15 minute delay. Without fail, since 2020, people start using the right shoulder as a high-speed passing lane which pisses me off to no end.
So we're stopped there. I'm in the far right lane, and it starts happening. We start to go, and the car in front of me speeds up, I follow, then they slam the breaks. I stop, too, but I also edge over to the right shoulder to ensure I'm not going to hit the dude's bumper. As a result, I now am a foot into the right shoulder and stuck. Some asshole trying to pass me on the shoulder starts honking. I just sit there. So he edges up right along side me, and its clear he has some crappy car--broken driver side mirror, broken rear driver side panel. But he's kinda stuck, and still pissed I haven't moved. And I'm pissed, too, and now not giving an inch.
I just stare over at his window, then he lowers it, and his head pops out and he's got on a military style balaclava (not a chunky knit one, more neoprene?) and he just glares at me. Black kid, maybe in his early 20s? I glare back. Then he raises his hand out the window and he has something in it. I'm thinking it's a gun. Fvck. And I've got two kids in the car.
But it's not. It's a tape measure. He waves it around as if he's going to throw it at my car, and I'm just staring him down, and I put up both hands like "WTF do you want?" He looks at my kid in the front seat, yells something (I think, couldn't see his mouth), and then rolls up his window and squeezes by me and races away at 50 or 60 MPH on the shoulder around all the stopped traffic.
I guess I need to start packing in the car, no? Should I get a 25' or 30' tape measure? Plastic or metal?
