I was once driving my car through a residential neighborhood when someone cut me off and turned in front of me. I called him a name. A bad name. My window was open. So was his.

Moments later, I see him in my rear view mirror making a screeching U-turn and coming up towards me. Fast.

I turned down a side street and tried to look nonchalant. Right. He made the same turn and came flying up toward me, went around me, and spun his car to block me. He got out of the car and came toward me. He was at least 7 feet tall and 350 pounds of muscle (or so it seemed at the time.) He was red in the face and nearly completely out of control.

I was, um, scared to death. He came up to my car and began yelling at me and threatening me and, in general, getting me all a'quiver. I honestly thought he was going to either pull out a gun and shoot me, or yank me out of the car and give me a whuppin.

I tried to explain that he had misinterpreted the incident. Ha.

Finally, I guess he was spent (and other cars were coming to the blocked street) and he whirled around and get in his car and laid some rubber speeding away.

I sat there, shaken, and realized I'd come close to disaster and I had been given a lesson. Now I keep my windows up when I'm going to call someone a name.

Seriously, I think of that incident from time to time and remember that there are some people with real anger management issues, and even when they're acting like idiots, it rarely behooves me to try to be rude in return.

I think the best policy is to feign misunderstanding, and wave and smile and say "Hi!" as though you thought that's what they were doing.