Getting cut off by someone with a Jesus fish on the car.

Why do people own buffalo? What's the thought process there? If you're Ted Turner and own a herd that you eat occasionally, I get that. But owning two buffalo seems like a really arbitrary purchase to me.

You can't shave them for their fur. You can't ride them or bring them to little kid birthday parties where seven year olds can prance around on them between pin the tail on the donkey and cake. That I'm aware of, you can't teach them tricks or barrel race them in competitions. They seem like one big, expensive designer pet. Like a fancy purse dog, only they weigh two thousand pounds and you probably can't put them under the table at a restaurant that serves capers and food that is "fusion."

These are the thoughts that go through my head as I drive to work now because we recently moved and there are two buffalo down the street from us. Maybe they are just "yard buffalo," like owning a really nice, really mobile painting of the Southwest. Hard to say, but a week ago, my otherwise pleasant buffalo thoughts were aggressively interrupted. How?

By someone who cut me off with a Jesus fish on their car!

I know what you're thinking, "But surely, someone with the Ichthus symbol on their car would never have done that!" I know, I was shocked too, but despite writing about Christians behind the wheel a few times, this was the first time I can remember something like that happening to me.

Here is what immediately went through my head:

1. I can't believe someone with a fish on their car would cut me off.

2. It's not really a fish, it's an ichthus but even in my head I can't spell that word right. There are like 19 h's in it. I have a harder time with that word than myrhhhhh.

3. Is it worse that this fish has the cross in its eye? I mean, that's no entry level fish, that's like double the Christianity right there. I could have overlooked a standard fish, but this is unacceptable.

4. If you're going to drive that way, take the fish off, what a horrible witness!

5. Look at that guy, now he's riding on the tail of the guy in front of him. This guy is a monster.

6. I am so glad God has not equipped me with smite capabilities. I would be out of control right now, just smiting all day.

7. What am I really saying? That possession of a metal fish makes you a perfect person who never messes up and drives aggressively and cuts people off?

8. Would I feel differently if he also had a bumper sticker that said, "Not perfect, but forgiven?" Then at least I could see the fish, get angry and then immediately look at the bumper sticker and think, "Ohh, he got me! I'm not perfect either. We're both just messed up people trying to do this thing called 'merge lanes.' We're never gonna survive unless, we are a little crazy!"

9. Did I just quote Seal? What corner of my brain did that lyric come from?

10. Should I see the new Fast and the Furious? The Rock and Vin Diesel in the same movie? That's like a bicep punchfest. I bet Jenny will not go to that with me.

11. Why did he cut me off? Oh that's right, because when I saw him trying to pass me, I passive aggressively or passively aggressively sped up.

12. That's kind of a jerk thing to do.

13. Yeah but I didn't want him to get in front of me. Even if we're both going to be at the same red light in 30 seconds, I really feel like I have to "win" those 7 feet. Plus, I don't have a fish on my car. So, I can be a jerk.

14. Although I do have a "Stuff Christians Like" sticker on my car. Maybe I should take that off so I can be a jerk, although that doesn't seem like the solution Christ would want.

15. Maybe when Jesus said "love your neighbor" he didn't mean, "People in cars." They didn't have Kias back then, and there's no specific verse that talked about cutting someone off in a wagon or a donkey cart that I'm aware of.

16. You're right. Jesus probably didn't know cars would be invented. God was completely caught off guard by that and you've got a free pass to be a jerk when you're in one.

17. This is going to be a post on Stuff Christians Like.

And so it is. And so I missed some buffalo thoughts that day because I realized I drive like a jerk and hold other Christians to different motoring standards than me.

How about you?

Have you ever been cut off by someone with a fish on their car?