Billy Ferguson/Fourth Estate
BY: SYDNEY JOHNSON, FAUX ESTATE CORRESPONDENT
Editor’s note: This piece is a work of fiction written for Fourth Estate’s satire issue, Faux Estate.
Driving in Fairfax is such a joy. Having to wake up early to arrive at school an hour and a half before your class to find a parking spot in the overfilled parking deck is the best part about it, especially when you realize you paid hundreds of dollars to not be guaranteed a spot.
The huge amounts of traffic that you are greeted with every morning on the way to school, too, will always have a special place in your heart. Especially on days when everyone is driving like they want to get hit. Though road rage is usually discouraged, you should really just let it out – because it makes you a better person.
You might be thinking, “Why would road rage make me a better person?” Well I mean, why not? Expressing your emotions and frustration will help you have a more colorful personality. With just a single honk of a horn and a stern look to the person who just cut in front of you, believe me when I say that you will feel like a superhero in that very moment.
According to a study conducted by the University of Chicago and the University of Colorado, angry outbursts that link to road rage are a result of a condition that causes inflammation in the body. What’s so bad about being on “fire” all the time anyway?
The bigger picture here is that as college students, we need to let our emotions out somehow. From the stress of classes to keeping up with extracurricular activities and sometimes making sure to call back your mom, our frustrations from these very tiresome everyday tasks need to be released for our own good.
Besides, doctors recommend that we release our frustrations and emotions instead of bottling them up in order to stay healthy.
Be it a simple curse word, a hard punch on the wheel, a sharp turn around a corner, or even getting out of the car to yell in that person’s face and insult his bad haircut, road rage is the answer to all our problems and an effective way to release our inner emotions.
In the words of American operatic tenor Robert Breault: “Road rage is the expression of the amateur sociopath in all of us, cured by running into a professional.” So there you have it: Road rage is simply the answer on how to become a professional adult in the real world.
