Coming around under the East Avenue bridge on the Inner Loop, cruising along at a comfortable 60 mph, my path was blocked rather suddenly by a giant white F150 coming off the offramp.  I’d been cut off, in other words.  This fact alone would have been more than enough to earn my ire for a few seconds of my commute.  But in this case, my irritation was exacerbated by the giant gold lettering that dominated the too-big tailgate of his man-maker truck; bold words flanking of course a Colbert-esque eagle, infuriated by some unknown assailant caught presumably in the act of tailgating.  It read, unhelpfully:

Freedom Isn’t Free.

No shit, really?  And as I exercised one of those fundamental rights of man - in both traditional verbal and informal sign languages - it occurred to me that what really pissed me off beyond the simple truism was the implication: that this douche was somehow alone with his fraternity of like-minded douches in knowing what, precisely, the cost of freedom was.  Moreover, that they all sat in judgment of whom had and whom had not paid that price. No other contribution, no other sacrifice, no other act could serve the needs of freedom but those sanctioned by this dickhead and his buddies.

Yes, Wikipedia.org defines the phrase as a showing of gratitude to military servicemen.  Yet there was no memorial service present, he was in no parade, and it was simply a yet-more-grotesque display of personal opinion and air of superiority that is typically represented in some asshole’s political bumpersticker.  I’m sure the vanity of “making a statement” was in his head when he signed up for this little decal.  But in reality, it would have been no different if he’d airbrushed “Don’t blame me, I voted for Bob Dole” down the side of his truck.

Anyway, I’m really cranky today.