Use Your Words!

That title-- for anyone who has raised, helped to raise, been near someone who was raising, or was themselves, a child in the last twenty years, that phrase brings up some strong memories. For me, I get a generic image of a three-year-old, huffing and whining, stamping their foot and pointing at something in a very angry but wordless tirade. "Use your words!" i.e., Be a functional, socially adjusted and educated adult and communicate your desires to me in a manner which I can readily understand so that I might accommodate you accordingly.

When a child goes into a crowd, what usually follows is a string of apologies to everyone whom the child runs into. The parents follow in the wake, apologizing to everyone as their child goes barreling into legs and purses and whatnot, never saying a word. If an adult does the same thing, I'm assuming that the crowd wouldn't be so understanding. Children, they don't know any better; but an adult ought to. When someone runs into you, don't you expect an apology? If you were standing selecting produce, or meat, or whatever, something on the shelf, and someone were to come along and reach across you, just sort of wordlessly push you out of the way, you would be offended, yes? Do you think that you regularly do that, just shove someone else away so that you can occupy this space?

Well, you might not think you don't, but I can almost guarantee you that yes, you do. You, who are supposedly a well-adjusted and normal, polite, functional adult, almost certainly, frequently reach across and push aside and grunt and just shove your way into places. You've probably done it today.

I talk about driving a lot on this blog. That's because it's very easy to do correctly, not particularly hard to do well, and there are laws upon rules upon suggestions upon design upon rule upon requirement upon law upon rule designed to keep you safe from everyone else, to keep everyone else safe from you, and to keep everyone alive. And while I understand that things happen, and driving is very dangerous, there are absolutely things everyone can do to make everyday driving less hazardous.

Like, USE YOUR WORDS.

Turn signals, shithead. Fucking. Turn. Signals. A little light, which is a different color and FLASHES to draw attention, a little light that's SO EASY to turn on- just two inches of motion in your fingers, *click*, signal. Indicating to everyone around you where you intend to go, and if used appropriately, *when* you're going to try to occupy that space. (i.e., don't drive down the highway with your turn signal on!)

Like the man or woman shoving through a crowd, no one uses turn signals. So many people ignore them. But honestly, if everyone used them, everyday driving would be SO MUCH LESS STRESSFUL, which means everyone would be less pissed off, which would lead to fewer accidents.

Turn signals are your words. That's how you say, "Excuse me, I'd like to be *there*, if I may? Excuse me...." and they say, "Oh, sure, since you're indicated in a timely manner to me what you intend to do, I can easily adjust my speed to allow these two lanes of traffic to seamlessly merge, thereby not interrupting or interrupting the least amount possible the flow of traffic." Very simple.

I'm not sure what there really is to extrapolate on...

USE YOUR WORDS
USE YOUR TURN SIGNALS