Everybody's so (*&*%$*# mad!

People are getting madder every single day.

I don't know what they're so mad at, but they're really, really angry.

There was a time when I'd never seen people publicly holler in anger. I'm 54 years old, so that meant years and years of people keeping their cool and turning the other cheek.

Three times in the last week, I saw and heard people lose their temper for God and the whole world to see and hear. I mean, they were red-faced and madder than hell.

You won't believe what led people to morph into raving maniacs. You can, however, help me figure out why people are so damned mad.

The Safeway shopping center parking lot near the house is always busy. There are traffic signs and arrows painted on the ground to help drivers maneuver their way onto Waterman Road or out of the parking lot toward Rolling Hills, Rancho Solano or the highway. The folks who built the shopping center didn't leave room for two cars to pass each other in the parking lot, so they compensated with the confusing maze of traffic signs and directional arrows.

People are always backing into somebody else's path.

The other day, I was walking to mail a letter (OK ... to mail a bill payment that was long overdue) at the UPS outlet. I heard someone just lay on their horn. No one honks their horn for that long and that loudly. It crossed my mind that one of the stores had an alarm, that sounds like a car horn, going off.

I turned around to see a newer white van, the kind you see filled with kids headed for soccer practice, stopped in the middle of the driveway. A black SUV, one you'd typically see filled with camping gear or groceries, was stopped with it's front bumper almost touching the driver's side door of the van.

The woman driving the SUV was shouting out her window, leaning on the horn.

Remember, people are pulling out in front of each other in that parking lot all the time.

"Watch where you're going!! You *&^%$ idiot!?!!! You almost hit my *&^%$ van?"

It turned out that the woman driving the white van was shouting out her window, too.

"You %$#@#$%^ ... *&(**%!! *&^%$## *&*# car!"

The woman driving the van was unwilling to let go of the idea that blame had to be placed and accepted for the non-accident. I'd never heard one woman call another woman a *&^%$## *&*# before.

The drivers had attracted the attention of everyone in the parking lot. I'm not sure, but I couldn't have been the only one thinking, "What's the big deal?"

The woman in the white van pulled forward into her parking space -- still shouting to nobody from inside her car. The woman in the black van certainly couldn't hear her.

The woman in the black van rolled her window up and pulled away. Her face was ashen as, I'm sure, she realized that whatever she was really angry about had prompted her to make a fool of herself in the Safeway parking lot. Nobody gets that mad about a mixup in a parking lot. I suppose taking care of kids, rushing home to make dinner and being taken for granted by her husband could account for the altercation in the parking lot.

When the woman in the van finally backed out, safely, she was still shouting out loud to nobody. She was so upset that she was mad at ... well, mad at nobody. She was alone in her rig still shouting.

The next morning started like all mornings. I wondered where my next dollar would come from and went to spend one of my last ones to get gas. I wound up at the traffic lights at the four-way stop on busy Travis Boulevard across from the Raley's shopping center.

Suddenly, a little, late model pickup truck scorched through the intersection. The passenger had his head stuck out the window, twisting awkwardly looking to the rear. He was berating the driver of the little white car behind him.

"You *&^%$n' stupid *#tch! Keep your *&^%$ eyes on the ..."

I guessed that the guy in the black ball cap wanted the lady driving the little Toyota to keep her eyes on the road.

The guy was in his early 30s and he looked like the guy who goes from zero to throwing punches really fast. His cheeks were red, like every guy who drinks beer like cherry Kool-Aid's cheeks are red. There had to have been a beer belly hidden behind the passenger side door.

The black ball cap is the kind that men like him typically wear when doing something foolish. It's unclear whether black ball caps make men angry or if angry men wear black ball caps. (The incident hinted that there was certainly a bumper sticker with the white silhouette of a naked woman or a Playboy bunny somewhere on that truck. I'm virtually certain.)

The lady was driving that teeny, tiny Toyota. Not the Matrix, but the Toyota that was a Matrix before Toyota sliced the Matrix in half to make an even smaller car. The car would've fit in the fat, angry man's front pocket.

The woman had both hands on the steering wheel and she stared straight ahead and rolled through the intersection. The horse's ass in the truck was all twisted and contorted as he tried to stick his head further out the window to glare back at her.

In fairness, that guy's probably got problems in life. Like me, maybe he's unemployed. Maybe he's getting a divorce. Heck, he probably lives in his mom's basement. Still, hard to understand how anyone could be that mad at a woman who accidentally nosed too far out from the stop light at the I-80 off ramp onto Travis Boulevard.

Dixon's a tiny town to the east of Fairfield. It's located right along I-80, breaking up the farmlands that lead the way to Davis and, then, to the urban sprawl that starts in Sacramento. Nothing much happens in Dixon. It's quiet, usually.

Faithful Safeway shoppers like me get a discount on Safeway gasoline. There's no gas station at the Safeway in Fairfield, so I always stop in Dixon to get the cheapest gas that I'll probably ever get anywhere in my life. The Dixon Safeway gas station is always busy, as busy as anyplace in Dixon can be. Still, for $3.47 cents a gallon ... I'm willing to wait in line to get to a pump.

It's uncertain why the little guy gassing up his Ford Taurus was looking at the gas pump behind him and talking. He could've been talking to himself, I guessed, but he'd have to have been reciting one of his favorite speeches to have talked into the air for so long.

"Shut the hell up and get gas!"

Oh? The little guy was talking to the great, big, muscular man at the pump right behind him. The man with the muscles in the tight, tight polo shirt was talking on his cell phone. Aren't there warning signs that insist we not use cell phones while pumping gas? What are the odds that the cell phone would spark an explosion?

Ah, either way, I hoped my gas would pump quickly and, moreover, that the little guy would be quiet.

"*&^# you! There are open pumps! Nobody's waiting you &^%$#@!"

Oh, again ... the little guy was aware of the warning signs about cell phones and standing up for drivers who might want to use the pump the big dude was occupying. About the time the big fellow reiterated that the small man was a &^%$#@, I noticed that the man with the muscles was done pumping gas and just standing in the shade talking on the phone.

Why don't etiquette policemen like the little guy know when to stop talking? There really is no law against being thoughtless or selfish. How is it that they think that they'll be so reasonable that even a burly guy in a paint-stained polo shirt, a guy with a ragged goatee, will listen to them?

"Seriously, dude ... shut the *&^% up!"

Guess how many people were watching, listening and wishing they could shout, "Man, just get in your car and leave! The guy's getting ready to kick your ass. Give it up!" Well, there was me ... that's one who was thinking that way.

The smaller man just wanted to have control over something, I'll bet. Rules are rules -- at least, they used to be. Maybe he followed the rules and lost his job or his wife or his house. Then, he saw the big guy talking on the cell phone taking up a pump at a busy gas station and he couldn't take it.

The big man was a guy I'd fear in such a circumstance. He wasn't ranting or raving, but rather explaining loudly that he wasn't moving and that he wasn't hurting anybody. The inference, clearly, was that he'd be willing to go beat that little guy up and stuff him in his Taurus if the guy insisted on pushing things.

My mom taught me that there are times to just walk away. Too bad the little guy's mom didn't teach him the same thing.

It was an ugly incident made surrealistic by the fact that the big fella' never moved the cell phone from his ear. Who argues in public while carrying on a phone conversation? Either super cool or simply stupid, I figured. He kept the other party on the line and, it seemed, would shout down the little dude and then tell the person on the phone what he'd just said. I hoped that the person was suggesting that strangling the little guy wasn't an option.

People are so mad.