Ted overslept this morning — no big deal — he just had to walk a little faster on the way to class. Making his way through the Quad, he noticed this lunatic-girl in a blue shirt came jogging along. “Man, that girl is in a hurry,” Ted thought. She was wearing headphones so, distracted, she neither saw nor heard Ted. Without even properly telling him, she walked right across Ted’s path. She almost touched Ted, for crying out loud.Incensed, Ted dropped some four-lettered bombs screaming, “COMMUNICATION!” and gesturing like an Italian caricature. He was so distracted that he ran into someone else. Oh well — not Ted’s fault.Ted considered following the blue girl to really drive the point home, but he had to get to class. Ted’s lecture hall had only a single door. A group of kids came pouring out as he approached, keeping him at bay. “I don’t understand — why is life not fair to me?  Why didn’t they just defer to me? I was the one racing to class. I was in the hurry.”What’s worse, Ted got stuck behind a man in a wheelchair who was slow to get through the door. Well since this jerk didn’t understand the fact that Ted was late, Ted had two options: leapfrog the guy and risk injury or curse his mother.OK, now pretend all the above actually happened. What would Ted’s outrageous responses teach us about how people react every day … in their cars?”Have you ever noticed that anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anybody going faster than you is a maniac?” George Carlin famously asked.It’s well known that like alcohol, bad drivers aren’t very common in college towns, but on the off chance that you DO get cut off, tailgated or worse — get the hell away from them. Lest Dr. Hyde get the best of you.Road rage in a car is one thing, but you’d feel ridiculous doing it on foot, right?For a change, maybe try not to dignify their ignorance by ignoring your dignity. It begs the “well if he jumped off a bridge …” question. Because Ted couldn’t do this, he lost not only the time he thought he had gained by hurrying, but the time he wasted being late in the first place.If a man is not on schedule or time, perhaps he should sit there and take his licks instead of projecting his neurosis upon the sum of public goodness. The core issue here is accountability. If a man’s tardiness is out of his control, he’d be absolved in the end anyway, right?So further, what might road rage teach Ted about himself outside the gridlock? Figuratively, there will always be people going faster or slower than you, people who will not tell you they’re coming and people consumed by their own music. Rest assured, the alternative to this would be boring and easy to forecast. Ted is, in effect, screaming at one of life’s most redeeming qualities — its unpredictability. And he’s doing it in vain.Perhaps tomorrow, Ted could give himself time to chill out, shut up, do Ted and get to class. In that order.Jack Johnson is a 23-year-old mass communications junior from Fort Worth, Texas. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_jjohnson.– – – -Contact Jack Johnson at [email protected]