My Defiant Streak

Sunday I was driving up the road just up the street from my house when I noticed that house after house had put plain little white signs in their yards. These signs had all been spray painted over stencils and they all simply said, "25 mph."

The city where I live had already placed an official road sign that said "SPEED LIMIT 25" on both sides of the street, but apparently that wasn't enough for these people. Drivers DO tend to go about 40 or so through that section of this road, and they wanted to remind everyone of the speed limit.

I was going to snap a photo of these signs and put a picture of them on this blog with this article, but by Monday afternoon the city police had come and taken them all down.

Which is good, I think, because if most people are like me, they were ticked off by the signs. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a speeder. I don't think I drive much above 25 in that section of the road anyway. And I don't mind that the city has its speed limit signs up. Heck, I don't even mind when the city puts up those machines that post the speed limit and then radars you and tells you how fast you're actually driving. I consider that a public service, and I consider it the job of the city to monitor my driving.

What bothers me is that these individual home owners felt like it was THEIR responsibility to tell ME how fast to drive. It really brought out my stubborn, defiant streak. Instead of making me want to slow down, the signs made me want to race my engine as I drove by, get my car up to about 50 or so as I went by. I didn't do it because going that fast through that area would definitely be dangerous. But still, I WANTED to do it.

As I said above, I don't mind being told what to do by people who have the authority to do it. It's when people who don't have the authority try to tell me what to do that I get defiant. Probably the jerkiest thing I've ever done in my life was a result of this. Years ago Lisa and I were at the Cincinnati Zoo and we went to the orangutan exhibit. A woman was photographing the animals with this HUGE camera, and she had a sign hung on her back that read, "Photo Study in Progress. Do NOT Talk to me!" If she'd said "Please do not talk to me" I might have been in a better mood, but the giant "NOT" and the exclamation point sort of set me off. I tried to figure out what would be the most irritating thing I could do to her, and after a moment I went over, tapped her on the shoulder, and asked, "Hey! How come I'm not supposed to talk to you?" She glared at me and then turned away without responding. I didn't feel clever for making her angry. I felt like a heel. And maybe that's another reason why I didn't speed by the houses Sunday or Monday. I knew I wouldn't be happy with myself 30 seconds after doing so.

In any event, the signs are gone now, we've all been reminded of the speed limit, but I doubt that anything much will change as a result of this little mini-protest.