The Public Service Finger

This is a picture of my current maté gourd. Maté for those of you who don't know is a very strong green tea native to South America. Maté is traditionally consumed from a gourd. The leaves are placed into the gourd and water is poured through them. A slotted straw or bombilla is inserted into the leaves. The straw filters out the leaves as the tea is consumed. Hot water is continually added to the gourd until the leaves become too weak to provide good flavor. At that point the gourd is emptied and more leaves are added. I am very fond of maté and can drink it anytime although I enjoy it best on a weekend mornings when I have nothing better to do than sip from my gourd and meditate through the steam. Unfortunately that is a rather rare occurrence and I most often carry my maté with me as I am heading out the door to work. My maté gourd is a good one but it is small which is what makes it the perfect size for my commute to work each morning. It holds just enough maté to last all the way to work but not so much that I find it necessary to carry it inside to finish the gourd. Some people are a little unsure of my maté. They tell me that it looks slightly illegal. While they accept that I would not bring an illegal substance to work, I find that at times it generates much more conversation and questions than I feel like dealing with.

This morning was a good morning. I was driving to work rocking out to the music on my radio and sipping my maté as I drove. There was no hurry and traffic was moving smoothly so I got into my lane and just flowed along with it. Suddenly, a huge horn sound just behind my bumper from the other lane. After a moment of near panic, I realized that I was not being run down by a run away semi. The fire truck behind and beside me was honking apparently at me. As I tried to understand what it was that they wanted, it pulled along beside me and the fireman in the passenger seat leaned out the window and shot me the finger! I was beyond shocked; I was filled with anger and righteous indignation. He wasn't even a cute fireman, just a homely balding guy in a boring blue shirt although why that mattered I can't really say. I would catch up to that truck and get it's number and then I was going to report them for their unprofessional and unseemly behavior. I caught up and passed them as I got the number. At the next red light I pulled out my phone to make the call. Just as the phone began to right, the light changed and the truck caught up to me and again honked and gave me the finger. The phone was still ringing. I took a couple of very angry sips of my maté and looked down to see if I needed more water and suddenly I understood. They thought I was doing drugs and driving my car. The miserable homely bald guy was expressing his outrage at my reprehensible behavior by giving me a public service finger. I laughed all the way the work.

RW