One man’s laughter is another manslaughter

How ironic that I was just musing over this little quirk in our language this morning? I saw a shirt that said “You can’t have manslaughter without laughter” on tshirthell.com. That is a great site, by the way. Funny, funny shirts. Some of my favorits are:

• High on Life … and glue!
• WWJD – for a Klondike Bar?

Anyways, back to the irony. As I was kicking around other linguistic quirks in my head (i.e. every funeral starts with fun), I got cut off by some [individual] who was trying to pass the car in front of him. He swung his van into my lane and I had to pull a pretty swift dodging maneuver to avoid him. This was made all the trickier by the fact that a woman was standing on the street waiting to cross. If he had hit me, it could easily have sent me into her and likely would have killed her.

First thoughts: it’s amazing how things slow down so much in such a situation. While this was happening so quickly, I was able to think clearly enough to actually prioritize my movements – slow down of course was at the top, but I also was readying for impact with the van. I was not about to steer away from it because I knew where the pedestrian was on my left. For this same reason, I knew if the van did hit me I was going to have to turn into it – possibly spinning it – in order counter the leftward force it would have put on my van. Finally, a bit lower on the priority list but important nonetheless, was determining at which point it would be safe to start honking and swearing at the aforementioned [individual].

The van wound up pulling behind a slower driver than the one he tried to get around the first time. Switching lanes, I actually got up to him and passed him. I gave him a thumbs up and he started honking back at me with a really pissed off look on his face.

I’d expect that the woman does not realize what I did for her. It was awfully close to her and there was a lot of honking, so she probably had one heck of a scare and thinks both of us were crazy and reckless. I think I did her one hell of a favor today, but I don’t expect her to ever realize it. I do, however, hope that she stops waiting in the street instead of the sidewalk.

The guy, on the other hand … Well, he probably doesn’t know what I did for him back there. If I were not as quick to react to his stupidity, he would be at fault for at least the accident. Furthermore, it was quite possible that he could have faced a vehicular manslaughter* charge were it not for my quick and steady thinking. I kept his [donkey] out of jail, and he’s mad at me?

At this point I specifically challenge the marital status of his parents upon his birth, that bastard.

* see - I was pondering manslaughter (the word, not thinking of committing it) and I was almost involved in one. Perhaps I'll ponder lottery winnings now!