The Finger

I spent last night at Grillo South (Beacon Falls) to watch and clean up after the two cats while my parents vacationed at Grillo North (Plymouth, N.H.). It was a nice break from a hectic week of 5 a.m. shifts and schoolwork. But the extra effort is worth it: I'm only 15 weeks and a thesis away from adding "M.S." at the end of my name in my email signatures (e.g. Michael L. Grillo, M.S.).

On my way back to Grillo East (my apartment in Middletown), a silver Scion sped by me as the rain fell and pulled in front of me. At the next light, I moved into the passing lane and pulled in front of the Scion after passing it at a reasonable speed.

The Scion then sped around me, and a minute later, a child wearing some sort of bandana around his head leaned out the passenger-side window, shouted at me and extended his middle finger in my direction. The child, no older than 16, had a menacing look on his face, and I flashed the highbeams to acknowledge his presence.

I normally have no hope for most teenage males because this is the way they generally act. Though I wasn't the most polite 16-year-old myself, I had enough manners to not act like such a clown in front of strangers.

This led me to think: why does anybody use their middle finger as an initial reaction to strangers? There's so much unjustified hate in the world, and it isn't right. What we need is...

Justified hate. If I hate someone because they hate me enough to flip me the bird for no reason, then that is perfectly alright. At least Jesus would say that, if he's as human as I believe him to be. So, with this logic, it will only be ok to attack Iran if they do something stupid to us first.

Just wait President Obama/McCain/Barr/Nader/Grillo: like Joe Biden, Iran can't keep its mouth shut forever.