Sensitive souls say, ‘Honk if you want trouble’

Lori Borgman

Today’s question: Is there such a thing as a friendly honk?

The youngest -- and best -- driver in the family, if you can overlook the fact that she refuses to stop on long road trips -- and I were at a red light. The driver in front of us was looking at himself in his mirror, fixing his hair, when the light turned green.

We waited, three, four seconds, and then agreed we should give a little honk. My driver ever so lightly tapped the horn: “-beep-”

That was it. It was such a friendly little “Herbie the Love Bug” toot that I’m pretty sure the headlights batted their eyelashes and the front grillwork turned up in a big smile.

The driver pulled back from the mirror, repositioned himself before the wheel and pulled through the intersection. Then he abruptly slowed down in a fashion that made us think he had no affection whatsoever for Herbie the Love Bug.

So we slowed way down, like maybe we’d turn on another street, pull over and change the oil, or rip out the transmission.

We pulled up to the stoplight, where our new friend was waiting two lanes over. His taillights were glaring and his rear tires were spinning gravel even though we were on pavement.

“Were you honking at ME?” he shouted.

I smiled and, in what I thought to be a disarming voice, answered, “Yes, the light turned green and we didn’t think you saw it because you were messing with your hair.” I thought maybe this would diffuse the situation and possibly even prevent him from having an imminent heart attack.

He sputtered, turned red and cut loose. (LANGUAGE ADVISORY) He screamed, “TAKE A FLYING LEAP!” Parents, you should be so lucky your kids talk like this.

It was like having Frankie Avalon read you the riot act. I thought Doris Day and Rock Hudson might jump up from his backseat and start a pillow fight.

It was a nice way to be told off, but then we felt sorry that we had inadvertently irritated a fellow who was above being coarse, vulgar and uncouth.

In our post-encounter analysis, I said I believed that the one-tap friendly honk was universally understood. It is a versatile honk; much like the word aloha. It can mean, hello, goodbye, heads up, I’m here, I’m leaving or I see you in that big chicken suit flapping your arms.

Consensus was that the friendly honk is vastly different from the mad warning honk, which is a loud, long, angry blast that says, “stay in your own lane,” “pay attention, cell phone diva” or “my brakes are out.”

After consulting several etiquette sources, while they acknowledge the friendly honk, they advise against it. They seem particularly averse to using it to tell a girl you think she’s cute or a guy that he is hot, or as a means of asking friends “what’s happening?”

They were also emphatic about not honking the horn because you are too lazy to get out of your car and go to the door.

You may, however, use your horn in the parking garage after your baseball team has won, in a parade – AND -- to alert another driver as to a driving error.

So there you have it. In addition to the friendly honk and the warning honk, we now have the driving error honk to add to our growing repertoire of honks.

You go first.