Familiar but still quite different

Certainly Spokane isn’t the only place where it happens.

But I suspect seeing someone driving a car just like yours do something insanely rude or aggressive stings a bit more here.

Why? Because many in Spokane love to assume a universality of perspective.

You know. Everyone goes to The Lake. Everyone is in love with GU basketball. Everyone does Bloomsday. Everybody is a fan of Hoopfest. And on and on.

Exaggerations all.

Perhaps we’re prone to cling to these broad-brush assumptions because Spokane is not a hotbed of certain kinds of diversity. So maybe it’s tempting, or perhaps self-serving, for some to imagine that we’re all alike.

Anyway, you have to guess that some of us are inclined to believe that people behind the wheel of cars that are the exact make, model and year as our own must be a lot like us. Right? Stands to reason.

Then you see someone in your car’s twin cut another driver off or blow through a stop sign. It can be a little depressing.

“How could someone with my exact tastes in one regard be so different in other ways?”

Of course, maybe they aren’t really different. Maybe you are in denial and you are the exact same kind of road menace.

Nah. Just kidding. You’re OK, no doubt.

The other guy? Well, maybe he borrowed that car from his prince of a brother-in-law.