Attention: You Are Not Alone in the Universe

Several days ago, a new phenomenon began to occur in my neighborhood. Normally, the early morning hours are filled with a variety of nature’s sounds including wild birds singing, deer walking their well-worn paths while crunching the occasional leaf, and dogs barking here and there. Aside from the dogs, it’s a great way to begin a day.

Last week, while the various forest creatures were beginning their early-morning routines, and I was pouring my second cup of coffee, a car horn sounded several long, obnoxious, un-forest-like hoots.

The noise silenced everything else but reverberated through the area like the screeching echo of a beast. Talk about a mood spoiler.

The next day, it happened again.

And so it appears it will be on weekday mornings.

The driver is obviously picking up another passenger, and the idiot behind the wheel is so pathetically lazy and rude he/she thinks laying on the horn is appropriate.

I hated the horn-honk when I lived in the city, and in the mountains, it is just this side of criminal.

But it goes far beyond the noise: in the car, I imagine (based on the time) there is at least one school-aged child being taught by his or her parent/guardian that it's perfectly fine to be lazy and rude and honk one’s vehicle horn in the peaceful hours of the early morning.

Neighbors be damned.

That same passenger is also being taught that getting out of one’s car, walking up to the door of a person with whom you are about to share a ride is a complete waste of time and energy.

At the very least, the asinine honker might send the kid from the car up to the door, but that might mean the child actually burns up a few stored calories, so forget it.

And before anyone points out the driver might have only an infant who can’t be left in an automobile, I ask you: do you think the dingbat driver is without a cell phone? What—he/she can’t pull to the curb, park the car, and call the person in the house to announce the grand arrival? (Heaven forbid the rider wait outside in the beautiful, late-summer air.)

I can promise you this: if the honking keeps up, I’ll be getting into my own car and driving the vicinity to find the mad honker so that I might honk at him or her myself.

What is wrong with people?