Honk your horn
After a particularly grueling and frustrating week at work, I was driving home from picking up my daughter from school, and there were several different honking exchanges at this one stoplight. This is Pittsburgh, which is more midwest than east coast, so I rarely hear anyone honk, and almost never the sustained angry honks I was hearing. I thought, "They must be having the kind of week I'm having."
A bit later, I found myself alone on the road, no other cars visible either way. I thought, maybe I could honk. So I did. A nice long one. And it felt very good. I did it again a bit later. Still cathartic. I finally had to stop because my 10 year old was going to die of embarrassment.
So that's my recommendation. Get out there and let out a big honk. Not at anyone, not road rage, just let loose a little.
What are your other outlets for relieving stress?
Same vein, but sometimes... Just scream. It's a privilege to live far enough away from other people that it's not going to freak out any neighbors. But a good yell is cathartic!
Car screaming is great if the home will stress out the neighbors. Even better if it's raining
Oh, can't believe I forgot about car screaming! Also a technique I've used to wake myself up on long and/or late drives. It was a staple when I worked night shift.
A good car scream when it's raining outside - idk why the rain just really helps my vibe especially if it's a car sob and scream - is so cathartic.
One of my favorite youtube skits of all time:
A Pillow To Scream Into
So many little gags, true comedy.
Digression: Interestingly, linkedin flatly refused to return search results for Timothy. More googling led me to this reddit thread . If I ever get to name some pets, Tomothy and Jedward are going to be top of my list.
I lived in the woods growing up, and my brother and I were going wild on a windy day and just literally screaming at the ground. A neighbor came running through the woods to make sure everyone was okay. It was funny as a kid, but my parents were pretty embarrassed.
Just about the only thing I miss about working in kitchens is going to the walk-in and just cursing and screaming my head off. Turns out all that insulation is good for more than just keeping food cold. Sometimes I’d “forget” to grab something so I could go right back and get another little outburst in.
I read a book a while ago (The End of the World Running Club - it was fine) that had a character who yelled at the sun every day, saying something like
For whatever reason, that stuck with me and I sometimes yell at the sun if I’m on the bike path by myself on my commute.
Someone once suggested in a YT video that there should be an easily reachable little courtesy honk button, just one or two short bips rather than beeps, maybe to let the distracted person ahead know that the light is green or to thank them for letting you pass.
bip
bibbip
I remember this video and have thought about it pretty much weekly for the last 8 or so years since I saw it. I think having additional means of communication between cars would be a net positive. I have thought it would be nice to have a little electronic message board that could display little messages like "thanks for letting me pass!" would be fun but I also know that immediately the worst things would be written on it.
Driving around is pretty much the only time a social credit score starts to make sense to me though...
I had a friend who proposed a system with dart guns that fired little markers made of a fast setting, unbreakable epoxy. Each driver is given a limited number, and if someone does something they don't like, they shoot one and it's permanently affixed to the offending car. Visual social credit!
I used to drive a Saturn which, instead of a giant mashable central steering wheel horn, had two small horn buttons on either side of the wheel. Deeply unsatisfying.
Hah, seen that in an opel astra probably old enough to be a us senator, too. I get the feeling, it feels very different & unsatisfying