Oh, so bad

As promised, here is what I did:
(And it's not a bad, me-the-mom story, it's just a bad me story.)

Our street has three houses all in various degrees of being built.
One right across the street from us (a son, who is a builder, is building it for his parents-isn't that awesome?).
Two down the little hill and almost directly across from each other.
They are being built by the same people that built ours.

I know that construction traffic is a consequence of choosing this house that we live in. Fortunately, our area is one that is blessed to still have some growth right now. Ususally, it's no big deal. We are just very careful.
Our mailbox has only been knocked down once and the builder mentioned above took care of it right away.

Today was an especially busy day on the street. Every contractor and their dog was there. (Well, not really their dog, but I just like that saying & when the house diagonally behind us was being built, one of the contractors did bring a little dog that liked to squeeze through our fences and visit our the dog.)

As I was pulling out of my drive, onto our street (facing a little neighborhood park), to turn on the the other street before the main street (ok, I know that's a lot of streets, but we live on the corner and the other streets are very close together.), through the construction worker's vehicles, I noticed some dark movement. I stopped moving and a little black truck came ripping around the corner. He would have hit me if I hadn't stopped when I saw the movement. I am glad I stopped.

I backed up and out of his way. He drove on quickly.
You know that weird rush you get when you have a close call like that?
I got it.

And, maybe I was associating that construction worker driver with the driver that did a u-ey and squeeled his tires in front of my house early the evening before, but I was mad.

So this is what I did:
I followed him down the hill.
The little hill where, on both sides, construction vehicles are parked.
And there is one tiny lane to get through.
And then there is a big truck with a trailer coming toward me.
Keeping an eye on the little black truck, I pulled over and parked in a tight spot.
In front of me there was some construction guy waving parking directions to me (that's how tight it was).
And then, because it looked like that person in the little black truck was going into one of those houses, I got out of my car.

And ran down the road.
And I said loudly and not in a nice tone, "You have to slow down. I live in that house on the corner and you almost hit my car. There are children in this neighborhood & you have to be careful. I don't care if you hit my car-no, I would care, but--if you would have hurt my children, that would have been very bad. You have to slow down."
Him, "I'm sorry."
Me, "You have to slow down. You can't drive so fast in a neighborhood."
Him, "I'm sorry."
Me, "You have to slow down."
On and on like a crazy woman. I couldn't stop saying it.
Him, "I'm sorry."
Again and again.

Finally I stopped. I think he was really sorry.
Probably sorry that this crazy lady was on his case, too.

I walked back to my vehicle and my parking helper was just looking at me.
I said, "He was going too fast."
He said, "I know and there are too many of us here right now."
I said, "Will you please tell any of these workers you are around to please slow down?"
Him, "Yes."
Me, "Thanks."

And I backed up the road, backed into my driveway and drove out of the neighborhood.
And I called the construction forman of the two houses, because I saw his van there and I have his number.
And I asked him, "Will you please tell any of these workers you are around to please slow down?"

When I returned an hour or so later, it was too beautiful outside to go inside so, I pulled some weeds in the flower beds and pretty much dilly dallied around the front yard and driveway for a while.

A few workers drove by. Slowly.

I do have guilt about going on and on and on at the poor guy.
But, I learned that sometimes it pays off to be a little crazy.