Society should be more careful what they throw out of their car window. Personally, I’m not an advocate of littering, but if you’re inclined to do this, this is something you should consider. Some time ago, I was at a traffic light, about three cars away from the light. It was red. My car was motionless. Up ahead, three cars in front of me, some guy who will remain nameless (he remains nameless because I don’t know his name; never saw the guy before in my life) throw a wad of gum he was chewing out the window. “Distasteful,” I thought. That was nothing compared to the event that laid ahead.

As soon as the light turned green, I started moving ahead slowly…but then the car in front of me stopped quickly, causing me to do so as well. I honked my horn a couple of times…I thought “Maybe he had a memory lapse and just forgot where he was…” But the car in front of me went into the other lane to pass the car in front of him. The car in front of me (to avoid confusion, the car that was previously two cars in front of me will now be referred to as the car in front of me) was trying to go, but he was stuck as if he was in mud, except he was on the concrete road. Astonished by this, but aware of my surroundings, I decided to pass him as the car that used to be in front of me did. That didn’t happen.

The car in front of me started moving in a circle, like a compass, and was pivoted on its front driver’s side tire. I sat there with my jaw dropped as this car completed a 360 in one place in under twenty seconds. The driver stepped out of his car, looked at his tire, and yelled obscenities up to the heavens. After kicking his tire twice, he went to the curb on the side of the road and started pouting and muttering. If I had been driving and saw this man on the road pouting and muttering without seeing the 360 spectacle, I would have said to myself, “Crackhead” and kept driving. But since I saw the whole scene, I felt an obligation to pull over and see if there was anything I could do to assist him.

I approached the man and asked if there was anything I could do to help. He replied, “Naw, not unless you got some gum wrap.” “Gum wrap?” I inquired.

“Yeah, that fool ahead of me threw some gum out the window, and it got stuck on my tire. Now I ain’t going nowhere!”

It just so happened that I had some gum wrap in my pocket from some gum I had chewed a while back. Knowing this, I told him “It just so happens that I have some gum wrap in my pocket from some gum I chewed a while back.” “Let me see it,” he said. I pulled out the wrapper and showed to him. It was a Trident gum wrapper. After seeing this he blurted out, “Man, fool, that ain’t gonna work!” “Why not?” I asked.

“Because the gum under my tire is Big Red. That ain’t no Big Red gum wrap!”

“What difference does it make if I have Trident wrap or Big Red wrap?!”

“Man, you just don’t understand, do you? You’ll never understand!”

“Look, I’m just trying to help, and you’re not making it any easier…”

“No one understands…” With that statement, he started muttering to himself again.

I left that site with an empty feeling, like I set out to accomplish something, but didn’t. By remarkable coincidence, I’ve seen this guy four times since the incident. His only acknowledgment towards me is “You’ll never understand!” It’s reached the point to where I hope I never see him again. I mean, it’s kind of embarrassing when you walk into a restaurant and some guy yells across the room at you saying you’ll never understand. The worst part of the whole thing is that he’s right, I have no clue what he’s talking about.