Assumptions

Driving at dusk, in Chicago interstate construction is stressful. Why did he need to call now, with traffic converging from six lanes to two and the sinking sun blinding me through my driver’s side window? With the bluetooth malfunctioning, I made the rash decision to physically pick up the phone. No, this is not the message I want to send to my son, watching attentively from the back seat. I rationalized that I was running late and needed to reassure my husband that we were on our way home.

After hanging up, I could feel the vehicle next to me keeping pace. Unsure of how long this had been going on, I tried to ignore it. “Mom, that man’s trying to get your attention,” my son stated. I sheepishly glanced toward the driver, his eyes rapidly toggling between the road and me. I gripped the wheel more tightly then looked only straight ahead. “Mom, look! He’s doing something with his right hand.” I felt a knot in my stomach as I saw the man making, what appeared to be, a ‘chomping’ motion, like the 80’s Pac Man arcade game, his fingers clapping up and down against his thumb. A gesture mocking my ‘yapping’ on the phone while driving.

“Should I give him the finger?,” my son asked with excitement. With a concrete barrier to my left, bumper to bumper traffic to the front and back of me, he had me pinned. I had nowhere to go if he decided to escalate the situation. “Absolutely not, people are crazy and we don’t want to make the situation worse,” I exclaimed.

My blood pulsated and my muscles remained flexed, while the black pick up truck and I traveled in forced tandem for several miles.

Without my noticing, the sun was now well below the horizon, the first stars emerging into the night sky.

It hit me.

Clapping your fingers up and down on your thumb is not the universal sign for ‘get off your cell phone, idiot.’ It can also mean, ‘my dear, fellow traveler, it is dark, and you should turn on your headlights, to be safe.’

Clicking the knob on the dashboard, I turn to my right, mouthing ‘thank you,’ thinking- what other assumptions have I made that have been so grossly incorrect?

“Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make- bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake- if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble.”

Lemony Snicket

photo courtesy of Darwin Vegher

Snicket, L. (2001). The austere academy (book 5). Harper Collins.