I came up with this one yesterday, as the result of a conversation with a friend of mine during a car trip.

Madmiration: a feeling of commingled respect and resentment.

Here’s the situation that prompted the word’s genesis: my friend was telling me about his ex-father-in-law (sort of—long story). The guy is apprently a real asshole. However, one day he did something on the road for which my friend—and I—had to give him real, albeit grudging, props.

The three of them (my friend, his girlfriend, and her dad) were out on an errand, with the father driving. He was coming up to a red light, in the left of two lanes. There were two cars stopped in his lane and none in the other. He pulled up behind the second car and noticed that the driver was not paying attention to the road, the traffic, or the rest of the world. You know the type: talking on his cell phone while reading stuff off a stack of stapled laser prints while eating a bagel. Probably while adjusting the rigging on a tiny ship-in-a-bottle-model on the passenger seat, too.

Dad says, “Watch this.” He pulls into the next lane, astride the distracted motorist, leaving a car-length space between himself and the front of the line. He waits a few seconds, then begins moving forward, as if the light had changed.

Not paying any attention to the real conditions of the road, the guy on the left takes his cue from Dad’s forward motion. Without looking up from his sheaf of papers, he moves his foot from brake to gas, surging forward and smashing into the car in front of him.

Moments later, the light changes, and Dad drives off, leaving the scene of the accident he had caused.

Such behavior is dangerous, rude and really unacceptable in a civillized society. Which is why I feel so bad about admiring it so much.