I found a better way

He rides my bumper like a jackass in some special hurry (to get where - his job that he certainly hates but is late for?) Unsatisfied with my speed, he jumps to the next lane to drive inches from the bumper of an old lady's car.

Now in a turn-only lane, I pass the old lady and the other driver. I beep my horn and point and glare at him to acknowledge his fine display of jackassiness. He then whips back into my lane to tail me, I thought, to retaliate for my beep and glare. My mind flashes forward to him tailgating me to my house -- just .2 miles away -- and the confrontation that follows. As my future self confronts him, nobly exclaiming "There's no need for any of this," he butts back into the right lane.

All fine until he is right beside me stopping for the red light. As he pulls up he is leaning on his horn, and has his middle finger ready hanging out his window. We make awkward eye contact, seperated only by six feet and the glass of my passenger window. He looks about 24.

Seeing my nemesis' portruding middle finger along with a bothered wtf face makes something unexpected shoot from my mouth: an outburst of laughter. I just put my hands in the air, laughing hard, and shrug my shoulders.

What I presume to be an unexpected reaction breaks his glare and he puts his middle finger away. And then he smiles, as if to say "You're right. This is silly, this game we play where you honk at me and then I honk at you and flip you off, the game where our blood pressures rise and we get really mad at each other but can't do anything about it because we're in separate moving vehicles, the game where we drive off in a huff and then when we get home or to work we retell the story, saying 'Oh you should have seen this idiot on the road'".

His guard collapses and we laugh at each other, suddenly just two guys, former strangers, former enemies, chuckling about old times. The light turns green and the cars ahead of him begin to move. As he drives away, with his hand still out the window, he waves.

I keep laughing all the way home, thinking that now if he followed me to my house, we'd probably end up being buddies and we'd have this really funny story about how we met.