When it comes to inventions turning into a different creation altogether, I have to think how the car horn has not quite lived up to its original design. I give its inventors the benefit of the doubt, that the car horn was created as a safety feature and not a means of communication, much less a sign of weakness, but social evolutions has certainly pushed it as far away from safety as it can get.
A few minutes ago, I got honked out when I didn't believe I should have been. It wasn't just a courtesy honk. Or even an ambiguous "hey, wake/speed up!" honk. It was an arrested-developmental-teenage hooooooooooooooonk. Of course, the irony is that the kid was tailgating me as well, which handicapped him from being able to get around. Instead, he just laid on his horn.
Here's how it all started: I was stopped at a red light, which wasn't more than 100 feet before the turn into my complex, so although the speed limit is 40, I am not going to accelerate up to 40 within 100 to turn left. Unfortunately, the truck behind me had other ideas to the point that I could barely make my turn safely. That's when the driver thought it would be suitable to lay on the horn. Big mistake!
I drove by my entry. I kept going down the road at -10 (i.e. 30 MPH, which is 10 less than the speed limit) while the kid just kept on his horn. A half mile, at least. Keep in mind, I drive a Chrysler Seabring, which is a notorious "old person" car, so the fact that I was driving so slowly should not have surprised anyone at all. In fact, about four other cars got out of our lane and whizzed by us, but we kept rolling down the road: a clueless old person and an obnoxious teenager. God only knows how well we actually fit those descriptions, but if you were an unbiased observer, I imagine those stereotypes would come to mind.
Finally, the kid had a break to get in the other lane (again, if he weren't tailgating me, this opportunity would have happened 15 seconds earlier) and he got in the other lane, at which point I promptly got in the left-turn lane with my blinker on. And I did a full U-Turn. Intentionally within his view.
I figured if he was the type of person to get that upset at a slow driver, seeing that I had nothing better to do than screw with him should completely ruin his night!
