Quit your honkin

So I’m standing at the corner of La Cienega and Beverly waiting to cross the boulevard when I hear a horn blasting. The light had turned green and the lady at the front of the line of cars had failed to realize that. That’s a problem because LA always has traffic and people don’t want to waste their lives sitting at the same light over and over again. We’ve all got places to be so that we can waste our lives doing other stuff like “networking” and quoting The Secret. This is however a great example of what the horn is for. You give it a tap and let the person ahead of you know that they can go ahead. I’ll admit that some times I like to even avoid that if I can. This particular honking D-bag (and passenger) was the worst kind because he wasn’t even behind the lady he was honking at. No, he was about 4 cars back, the perfect area to not know what is going on at the front of the line but still need to prove that your time is more important that the other three nobodies ahead of you. Plus the horn I heard on this day was in a tone that I immediately understood to be angry. Even though a car horn sounds the same every time you hit it, there are certain tricks to really proving what a tool you are in traffic and amazingly this guy ran through all of them at once, so we can use him as a text book example.

The Tricks:

1) Never be directly behind the person your honking at [we already covered that].
2) Skip the light “polite” honk and go directly to laying on the horn. Really slam your hand against your wheel, because I think it actually makes a difference on the outside. You’ll have to put down whatever expensive coffee you’re drinking to do it right, but you’ll know you’re successful if your expensive watch scuffed the Land Rover emblem on your wheel. It might even help if you yell cuss words and assume out loud that the person you’re honking at is a moron. The most important part of step 2 is that you hold on the horn so long that the droning sound seems to change tones slightly and everyone around you actually becomes more annoyed with the noise than the fact that they aren’t moving.
3) Abandon the long honk and now start with the shotgun blasts. This honk is not what you would call staccato but really more like about 1.5 seconds long.
4) Develop a rhythm with your short honks, spacing the pauses and the honks evenly. Nothing says “I’m the center of the universe” quite like honking in a pattern.
5) Speed up your short honks to double-time. It’ll really teach that person at the front of the line a lesson. You don’t take this crap from anyone, no sir, you and your ego march to the beat of your own horn. Keep in mind that all of this has to take place so fast that you completely drown out the NPR you were listening to.
6) As the cars start to move be sure to really gun the engine and let that V8 sing so everyone know you’re in a hurry, but then slam on the breaks so as to avoid hitting the car directly in front of you, cause that would just look silly.
7) As you approach the corner where the light is both you and your passenger turn and look at the guy standing there [me] and shrug your shoulders as if to say. “What was that lady’s problem?” It’s a bold move to assume that everyone else feels the way you do about losing 20 extra seconds, but you’re obviously a bold person. This shrug is basically your way of drafting other people on to team A-hole.
8) Finally, hit the gas and speed ahead so you can briefly pull up next to the person you’ve been correcting and stare at her for a bit. Otherwise how else will she ever learn the right way to act in an automobile?