I have a temper

I realized the other day I have a temper. It kind of surprised me - snuck up on me like. Here's the illimunating scenario:

Rain and snow had slowed traffic down to below the speed limit. Which is fine, no problem yet. Then one of the many construction zones reduces traffic down to one lane on the interstate. There's a sign posted well before the reduction "right lane closed ahead 3 miles". Plenty of time to get over into the left lane, yes? Well I thought so, but...

So just as traffic is slowing down to below 35 on the interstate for the lane reduction, an exit comes up on the right. Some brilliant types thought they'd take the exit and bypass the lane closure clog. Guess what? The return was just at the point where the right lane closes. Meaning all these cars are now right at the merge point trying to cut in where those of us who moved over 3 miles ago have been all along. (By the way, this is my number one pet peeve!) This is bad enough, but then there are still several cars trying to cruise along in the right lane and skip the line. Well along about 4 or 5 cars butting in or so, I get passive aggressive and move my car to the middle - straddling both lanes so nobody can pass me.

With me so far? Okay so I get past the construction zone lane closure and now I'm looking for somewhere to get gas. Not on empty - I have a quarter tank left so it's not urgent. I pass several small towns because I can't see any gas stations from the interstate, and it's raining and gloomy which reduces visibility. So finally there's an exit with those public service signs that shows a gas station - ARCO - coming up. I take the exit and maneuver the heavy traffic to make it into the gas station, only to find that they don't have "pay at the pump" and it's raining way too heavily to get out and pay inside. So I make it back out to the freeway and take the next exit where there are several more choices available. The first two are full; I pull into the third. The attendant comes up to me to say it's shift change time and they can't pump my gas for five minutes. This is when I lose it - the proverbial straw. I say "forget it", he starts to placate me, and I yell "forget it, forget it, forget it!!" and gun it out of there. It takes me nearly an hour and a stop at a rest stop to calm down.

Okay so this isn't the big temper tantrum it could have been, but it caught me by surprise. And then I start thinking about all the other times I've had a straw snap my cool. And I realize I have a temper. Not sure what to do about that. I'm usually very easygoing, patient, and hard to rile. I wonder if it has to do with aging.