I'm bicycling home from work and I'm thinking about a problem I failed to solve and my legs are going along in their mindless way and I am keeping an eye on my rear view mirror but I am riding on "Bicycle Boulevard" and feeling relatively safe about my situation. The road is sadly narrow and it is is made far more narrow by cars parked on either side because even the so-called Mini --- the late model Mini that they sell in the US is as fat as any other car. Compact. Mini. Hahahahaha. If these parked cars were people they'd be dozy old senior citizens whose soft bellies flowed over thei elastic waistband of their pants.
Slim little bicycles pass easily in both directions, cars not so much. I tell you that bicycling mothers and fathers can be spotted herding small shoals of children on little bicycles or in trailers as they make their respective ways home from summer camp or the playground so that you can understand that the road we are talking about here is not the Indianapolis 500 speedway although some of the cars going by make it feel that way.
I watch in my rear view mirror as a car comes up behind me very quickly. I look ahead and see a second car heading towards me in the mindless way that cars travel when the next traffic light is not on the horizon. The car coming up behind me is going very fast and I pull closer than is safe to the doors of the parked cars on my right. The speeding car passes me way too close and way too fast and still accelerating and I am startled and unhappy but not nearly as unhappy as the oncoming car who sees the windshield of an approaching automobile and pees a little and has no where to swerve and so just bleats a whiny little tiny Volkswagen bug bleat. Weah! Weah!
I watch Fast Car ignore the bleating and progress up the street at speed and then pummel a 4-way stop with nary a pause and then repeat at the next 4-way stop.
I arch an eyebrow. I pick up speed. I consider giving this driver some verbal abuse because he is driving like a bag of dicks***. It's easy to come up behind Fast Car at the next red light because even a Fast Car can only make so much progress on a tiny residential street dotted with stop signs and traffic lights and parked cars and strollers and bicycles.
Fast Car is now Stopped car. He wants to take a right at this intersection but the road is narrow and his way (it is a he) is blocked by a car in front that is going straight and waiting for a green. He honks angrily at the car that is blocking his way. That car ignores him because he cannot believe that a someone would honk at a someone else for waiting at a red light seeing that it is after all the law.
I am quite close now. As I watch, Stopped Car (nee Fast Car) gets out of his car (!!!) and strides angrily over (holy fucking shit!!!) to Waiting Car and starts shouting at Waiting Car. Waiting Car becomes Terrified Car and hunches back in his seat and stares up at the driver of Stopped Car (who I now christen 'Nutsy Fucker') and does not roll down the window. Smart boy. The light blessedly turns green and Waiting Car hurries off and Nutsy Fucker runs back to get into their car and tear away doing 40 in a 20 zone.
Holy shit! So so glad I didn't say anything to Nutsy Fucker when I had the chance. What did Nutsy Fucker look like? Old white guy with a straight across mouth in a tight thin line. Normal other than the froth dotting his chin. My my. Someone needs to have their meds adjusted.
Moral of the story? Don't stick your bicycle in the crazy. Not worth it my friends. Stay safe out there.
xoxoxo,
Chafed
***special thanks to the Australian engineer who taught me this wonderful term, you rock my insult-world TW
No comments:
Post a Comment