This is one of those "if I read it in a book I'd call bullshit" stories.

[missroserose]

Disclaimer: I was not present for this. However, my husband called me immediately after it took place, and he's not the sort of person to embroider the truth (much). And since he's unlikely to write it up himself, I'm preserving it here for posterity.

It's always a little worrying when you get a call from your significant other that starts out with "First off, don't worry, I'm fine and the car's fine." Which isn't to say I don't appreciate the disclaimer, but you know the following story's either going to be harrowing to listen to or a bit of a letdown. In this case, it was probably the former.

According to Brian, he was in Sierra Vista, gassing up our little BMW compact sedan when a dude pulls up to the pump in front of him in a giant pickup truck with Alaska plates. (Cultural point of note which will be relevant in a minute: in Alaska, it's actually mostly women who drive these trucks - I can't tell you how often I've seen some hopped-up Dodge with a Hello Kitty or swirly-logoed "Daddy's Girl" sticker on the rear window.) Guy gets out and starts fueling.

Brian, being a friendly sort, says "Hey, you from Alaska?" The guy's all "Yeah, I got transferred to Fort Huachuca last week." So of course Brian's all "Neat. I moved from there a few years ago." The dude kind of looks over at our car and goes "Hunh. So why do you drive that faggoty-ass BMW?"

Now, for those of you who don't know Brian well, he doesn't have what you'd call a temper. He's far too mature and confident about most aspects of his life to get angry easily, or to take offense at some dipshit's provocation. But there were two factors that (I suspect) contributed to his response here - [a] he's actually fairly proud of our car, and [b] some straight lines are just too good to pass up.

He answers, perfectly calmly, "That's funny. Coming from someone who's driving a girl's truck."

Now that had me cracking up already, but it gets even better. Again, according to him, the guy sort of stood there getting red in the face while Brian unperturbedly hangs up the gas nozzle and gets in the car. But just as he starts his engine, the dude jumps into his truck and starts revving the engine as if he's going to throw it in reverse and crash into the BMW.

I don't know whether he decides against it at the last second, or just puts the truck in the wrong gear, but instead he peels out of the lot, pulling the gas hose out of the station in the process.

And promptly T-bones a police car.

Needless to say, the police were Having Some Words with him shortly thereafter. Brian asked if he needed to stick around, but they told him they were fine, so he just drove on past, leaving the dude looking like a six-year-old who'd just gotten caught microwaving the family cat.

Comments

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Sweet, delicious karma. Breakfast of champions right there.

It could only be more perfect if the inevitable citations read "Son, don't start none, won't be none."

And Brian gets a huge gold star for (a) remaining perfectly calm and (b) trolling a guy into vehicular catastrophe. Epic.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Seriously, yo. On all three counts. :)

[ivy]

This is just winning of epic proportions. [giggling] I never saw the police car coming. Go Brian for maintaining a beautiful equanimity.

Do you mind if I link? I think my friends would laugh as hard as I did.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

I know, I didn't either! And it really is one of those things where if I'd read it in a book I would've just rolled my eyes and been like "Oh, sure, *that's* a believable coincidence." A certain saying about the relative oddness of truth vs. fiction comes to mind.

And he's Japanese. Equanimity is sort of their thing. :)

Please do link! I posted it precisely because I thought it would make people laugh as hard as *I* did.

[ivy]

[grins] I have linked, thank you!

[kiya]

Clearly dude in pickup did not see the police car coming either.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

HA! True.

[tirani.livejournal.com]

Breadcrumb from thewronghands.

Made. Of. Win. Thank you for sharing.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

[marialuminous.livejournal.com]

The whole thing is funny, but the detail that really gets me is this one: "he peels out of the lot, pulling the gas hose out of the station in the process."

He was still in the middle on pumping gas when he did that? Whoa. Whatever he was intending to do, he clearly hadn't thought it out very well at all. I almost feel bad for him, since he appears terribly deficient in logical thinking skills.

[likable-lemur.livejournal.com]

"Deficient." Yeah, that's just about the right term to describe most everything about that guy.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Brian (likable_lemur above) swears it's true. And yes, Army culture's rather big on blind machismo and stoicism and rather small on logical or independent thought, which is why ex-Army folks often have such a difficult time adjusting to the outside world. Things are a lot more complicated when you can't just follow orders and then cede all responsibility...

[onionhead.livejournal.com]

Bahahahahahahahahahahaha!! As if I didn't have copious amounts of dude-love for Brian already. This is brilliant. :)