The Useless Feature

I have an inveterate jerk roaming the streets out there to thank for my inspiration today (but let me come back to him). If I understand correctly, the car horn was not invented as the abusive cudgel we know it to be today. At the dawn of the automobile age, it was a benevolent invention meant to send out a happy 'Hello' to other motorists encountered on the road. It seems probable that there were so few that any meeting was a celebrated occasion, akin to two Englishmen crossing paths someplace far from home.

Today the horn is at best a jarring but well-intentioned spur to get going at a light. At worst, it is everything else a driver does in response to the vicious, despicable other drivers populating the roads. Now, as to that jerk: Looking out my bedroom window produces a view of the adjacent building and beyond that, the next side street. Off in the distance is the next major cross street. Somewhere out there is a man who saw fit to lean on his horn for an uninterrupted period of some minutes.

What might be the man's grievance? It's impossible to say. Given the prolonged duration of the honk, we can assume that it was not a quickly remedied problem, at least not with the particular people involved factored in. It's useless to guess however, for it is a faulty assumption to begin with that the irascible man even had a grievance. Some people just do things, and it doesn't take a problem to get everyone going. I liken them to the freeways here, which can clog in the absence of any accident or major event on the level of a Super Bowl or presidential visit.

Because it's over and because I never laid eyes on the man and his situation, I am prepared to let bygones be bygones. I cannot say how I would have reacted in his position, unless there was no matter to be in a position for in the first place. On the other hand, there may have been a raging inferno in some nearby high-rise, and this heroic citizen was employing his horn in an inventive effort to waken slumbering victims within. If that admittedly far-fetched set of circumstances is accurate, then we are all in that horn-honker's debt. I expect a parade shortly.