Carob and Sorrows. I mean Sharrows.

"If you think of carob as itself and not as a chocolate substitute, you'll appreciate these lovely brownies even more than you would anyway."  ---The Moosewood Cookbook

Over twenty years ago I suggested to my parents that I would like to be a vegetarian.  My mother said that to be a vegetarian, you had to eat lots and lots of fish.  This made sense to me at the time because I was raised to believe that if there is something that you really want it comes with a price that is in direct proportion to your desire.  I hated eating fish so it was logical that this would be the price exacted of me if I wanted to be a vegetarian.  This is probably at least part of why I have persistent fears of being dismembered by an automobile when I am out riding my bicycle.  I desperately love riding my bicycle and I am trained to believe that a cost of equal intensity will be exacted from me if I continue to ride.  Slowly I piece together that there are vegetarians who do not eat fish and so I suggest to my father that I will become a vegetarian who does not eat fish.  My father tells me that there is "meat in everything."  I go off and consider my favorite treat, the Snickers bar.  I read the ingredients.  No meat!  I become a Snickers-tarian, subsisting on Snickers bars and the occasional piece of fruit and let me tell you it is one hundred percent true, a Snickers really does satisfy.  Parents, let this be a lesson to you:  lying to your kids can have unpleasant and unexpected repercussions.

Fast forward six months or a year and I am pretty burned out on candy bars no matter how filling and sugary.  This is before internet access for me and so I visit a vegetarian restaraunt and buy a cookbook that happens to be the Moosewood Cookbook.  And in that cookbook (I'm getting to the point here) is a recipe for (wait for it) Sharrows!  Just kidding.  It's a recipe for Carob Fudge Brownies.  Yummy!  Carob!  Kidding again!  No one gets very excited about carob.  To paraphrase Sandra Boynton, both chocolate and carob are brown but then again same thing can be said of dirt.  Carob is arguably not tasty but it is definitely and unquestionably not chocolate which brings me directly to so-called "sharrows."

I've been chunking through my "I hate sharrows" post for awhile.  The problem is, when I am bicycling in one (they have arrived in my local downtown) the hatred is not some pure and unforgiving fire.  It's not even hate.  Sharrows are the guy you date when you are lonely but you should really wait for someone slightly better, you know, like a guy who is not a total asshole and who has a job.   If I say "I hate sharrows" then obviously I want them gone but I find that I am not sorry they are there.  So, what's the deal?  The deal is that sharrows are what you get instead of Mr. Right or even Mr. Employed and Not An Ass.

Sharrows do not make cars share because cars do not share, it's not in their nature.  There are decades of signs posted alongside roads that say silly hopeful stuff like "Share The Road" and those signs are ignored all the time by everyone except the bicyclist being forced up against the curb who points at them just before getting side-swiped.  Cars.  Don't.  Share.  Cars can have three lanes and they'll still balk at moving out of the way for a bicycle because the poor long-suffering driver of the car is working very hard with their hands and feet to keep that big heavy machine moving forward and if they were to move over one lane it might kill them.  Asking a car to share is like asking a semi-conductor to give a lecture on higher mathematics.  You can ask but there won't be a ton of response. 

Back to chocolate and carob:  Sharrows are carob when I am expecting chocolate.  What I want is a bicycle lane.  What I want for my kids and their friends and enemeies is a separate network of bicycle roads a la Holland.  What I want is a place to ride where I feel safe and confident and for me that is a bicycle lane and in some places that is a path where there are no cars.  At no time do I feel safe and secure in a sharrow because sharrows are filled with cars and cars kill bicyclists.  But if I stop trying to make carob into chocolate, or stop asking the sharrow to be a bicycle lane, I find that I like certain aspects of it.

What I like:

1. Sharrows look a little like bicycle lanes and so serve the purpose of hinting to the attentive cars that they can reasonably expect to see a bicycle.
2. I tend to ride too close to parked cars and their doors because I am less afraid of being doored then I am of being run over.  Sharrows persuade me further away from the car doors.
3. For those brief moments when I am bicycling on top of the sharrow paint I think the cars have a slightly harder time bullying me.  They seem to wait to force their way around until I am no longer on the white chevrons.  It's not perfect but every little bit helps.

What I do not like:

1. We are not getting cars who reliably watch out for bicyclists.  Depending on what study you read, cars may actually be incapable of watching for bicyclists.  I want to ride my bicycle with the same risk of death as a pedestrian walking to the corner store.  I want for kids everywhere to be able to enjoy the independence of bicycling to school and team practices or just the home of a friend without being run over and killed by  some seventeen year old listening to Emo music and angsting over his C- in Photography.  
2. Sharrows feel like a cheap sop to the masses.  Like asking for a living wage and getting a $2 coupon to Subway.

I'm always going to choose chocolate desserts over carob desserts but in the end if someone throws something down in front of you and says "here it is" there are occasions when you should probably suck it up and eat.  For me, sharrows are one such occasion.

well that was humbling

A week ago Monday I realize that when my meeting gets out, at 5pm, I could bicycle to Rapunzel's gymnastics class, put my bicycle in the trunk of the car and ride home with Contraption Captain and Rapunzel.  I consider the location of the gym and see it is about five miles away.  Then I see that I can take the lovely Stevens Creek trail, yay!  I will zip along and see no cars and have a beautiful ride and then meet up with my family, life is excellent!

5pm comes and goes.  The meeting drags on.  Outside it gets dark.  I feel a faint uneasiness.  I haven't been on this bike trail in over three years but I remember that it is not lit and that the "off-ramps" are marked in only the sketchiest of ways.  I start to wonder if I will be able to find the exit off the trail to the street I need to take to the gym. 

I reassure myself that I have a new bright light and that if I miss my turn-off I can always bicycle back for it because hey, missing a turn-off on a bicycle is not a big deal, right? 

At 5:30 the meeting grudgingly comes to an end and I beat it out of there.  It is very dark.  I turn on all my lights.  Now that the meeting is almost over I have a bare fifteen minutes to get to the gym but I'm a fast bicyclist so that should be fine.

Note to self:  when you hear that small nagging voice in your head, you should listen.  You really really should listen. 

I hurtle down the entire length of the trail and arrive at an expressway.  There is no gym in sight.  I have no clue where I am.  I ask someone for the street I am looking for.  She has no idea where I am either.  She suggests I go back onto the trail and "turn at the large garbage can."

I barrel back onto the trail and do a few tight circles around a large dumpster.  It is super dark and if there is a way off the trail here I can't see it.  I take another turn and find myself way up in the sky crossing over a highway.  This would be fabulously interesting if I were not totally lost and late and starting to freak out. 

I ask myself how a road bicyclist could find herself lost in the forest.  I dig through my backpack and discover that my cell phone has a sliver of life.  I call the Contraption Captain and sounding angry (because I am really mad at myself for being such a jackass as to get lost in the woods) I tell him that I am lost and he should head home with Rapunzel. 

Not unreasonably he asks where I am, he wants to help.  I basically shout "In the woods with all these trees!  I have no idea where I am!  Arg!"  I end up circling around some more following directions from helpful passersby that go exactly nowhere.  The directions that is, the people passing by are all too smart to get lost in the woods. 

Finally I just exit the trail altogether and start pedalling up a sidewalk on the wrong side of the road.  Yes.  I became one of those people.  I wanted to at least be on the correct side of the road but couldn't figure out how to get across the seven lanes of traffic without dying.  Then my hand was forced by the sidewalk ending and so I made my way across the road averting death. 

Ultimately, the Contraption Captain found me by the side of the road standing with my bicycle, demoralized and disconsolate.  Rapunzel silently offers me some of her Halloween candy. 

It's been a week and now I can admit that yes, it was pretty funny.  Not at the time but in retrospect at least.  The frantic biking up and down the trail and over the highways.  The joggers dressed entirely in black who would appear and disappear like ninjas.  The dying cell phone. 

Contraption Captain told me that the place I was supposed to get off the trail was basically a parking lot behind an apartment building and he is not surprised that I didn't see it.  Probably he is just being nice but it still cheered me up. 

What part of "no" don't you understand?

I've been on very good behavior for over a week after letting someone have it in such an angry way that I had to sit myself down later for a talking.

After work, the Contraption Captain and I bicycle towards each other and when we meet (usually in Palo Alto) he turns around and we often pull over for a minute or two.   When he comes up beside me we signal and then pull into a parking space to avoid blocking bicycle or car traffic.  We get off our bicycles and are hugging when I am briefly and unpleasantly startled to see that there is a white car wedging itself in behind us.  I say "wedging" because we are in a single parking spot and the car has it's ass in the road and it's nose in the piece of the parking place that we are not using.

The person in the white car rolls down their window and yells "Can you move forward?"

Forward is the driveway to a parking garage.  I don't want to be in the driveway for the parking garage.  I want to be in the parking space, where I am already parked, and I want to be left alone.  Also, I'm mad.  Really mad.  I say in a very unfriendly voice "No.  I can't."  To me the matter has been settled and I begin the important business of handing my laptop bag over to the Contraption Captain.  He has panniers and I do not and I am happy to give my back a break.

The person in the white car tries again "How about you move forward about three feet?"

So here I am in a parking space that happens to be a loading/unloading zone where people can park for twenty minutes.  We have our bicycles in the spot.  We have hugged.  We are loading and unloading.  The entire operation is going to take about three minutes and yet before thirty seconds is up someone wants me to move?  I take a deep breath and bellow "Jesus Christ!!  What is your problem???  WAIT YOUR FUCKING TURN!  What part of "NO" don't you understand you dumb broad?"

I'm really really angry.  Usually when I'm angry it is because someone has done something that makes me think I am about to die.  That wasn't it this time, this was new.  I was angry because no matter how tiny a piece of real estate I command as a bicyclist, there always seems to be someone who is telling me that it is way way too much and I should give it all back to their very deserving 4-door sedan.

The cars honk and shout if the bicyclists ride side by side and try and talk to each other.  The skinny little bicycle lanes of Toronto take up too much room and need to be torn out.  When I try and make my way across the road, signalling that I want to take a left someone may shout at me that I am in the way.  When I am pedaling to a red light a Dodge Charger roars by in the passing lane and then slams to a stop in front of me upset that I slowed them down however briefly.  If bicyclists stand out too much we are behaving dangerously but if we blend in too much we get run over.  And finally, if we move our bicycles into a parking space, away from the busy road and away from the crowded sidewalk there is still going to be someone standing behind us insisting that we should move forward.

Once I understood why I was mad it mostly went away.  I'm still bicycling, still enjoying the beautiful evening air.  I have a new helmet and some new lights and a new rear-view mirror.  I know that many regard my tiny piece of real estate to be way too huge but I am not giving it up.

Part 2. There is probably some truth to that "it's not if, it's when" stuff

First off I had no intention of leaving a cliffhanger.  Two things happened:  one was that I was so totally demoralized I couldn't really write.  The other is that I re-read my previous post and all the typoes made me wonder if a nine year old had taken possession of my hands.  I hope not because a nine year old running my hands would have serious repercussions for my work performance.

It's true about how bad news travels fast and that's how one day you find yourself getting a message from one co-worker that there has been an accident and another co-worker, who happens to be an avid motorcyclist, has been hurt.

I get this bad news and I'm really really upset.  I've known this co-worker since before moving to California and he's a good guy with a family and now I am sitting there worrying that he is out on the road or at an ER maimed or paralyzed or worse and despite my having a supremely bad attitude about anything motorized I actually can't stand to see anyone suffer an injury greater than a little humiliation at the hands of an angry middle-aged bicyclist.

But I am more than just upset that someone has been hurt and to get why you have to understand that this co-worker takes motorcycle safety to the nth degree.  He wears state of the art protective gear.  He trains on a track with a coach.  He's been riding for something like twenty years without incident.  He really really loves to ride his motorcycle and at the same time he comes across as rock solid clear on the dangers of it and so he hedges his bets as best he can with good practices and good gear and training.  What he does to protect himself, those are his walls.

I have my walls against death and dismemberment as well.  My bicycle walls against the world are careful practices, good lights, a safe-ish route, a helmet, a reflective jacket, a loud voice, an understanding of car behavior (maybe) and an absence of headphones.  

Back to my co-worker.  We find out that his head and back are okay.  We find out that his hand and foot are quite injured.  One toe will be amputated.  Several fingers will be wired back into place.  He's at the ER, surgery will follow.

My response to this is relief (he's not dead) and then a creepy progression towards minimizing.  One toe?  Well, there are still nine others, right?  One toe doesn't sound all that grievous.  I manage to hold on to this very comforting position up until I am treated to a picture of his foot sans big toe and needing a skin graft.  Hint:  it looks like it hurts.  A lot.

It's been weeks now and I haven't been able to write about this and as an aside he has not been able to return to work much either.  I wanted to write about how my co-worker loves to ride his motorcycle, as I love to bicycle, and he tried to keep back the wall of larger vehicles but ultimately one got through.  He was hit by a car in an intersection; he was going straight, they turned into him.  It's a classic bicycle accident, the hook, I can't help but notice.

So I am thinking about what I want to say, about bicycling and tricking ourselves into thinking we'll be ok and cars and I am in a bicycle lane and I see a squirrel dart into the street and I just have time to yell when the next car hits it and I see it's body half crushed and as I bicycle by it's shuddering in this sickening death twitch.  I stop my bicycle and then continue on and although I hate being this way I cry because I feel so awful about this squirrel and I think about the blank expression on the driver's face as she rolled over an animal and went on without hesitation.   The Contraption Captain is always very nice when I unhinge in this manner so at the next traffic light I cry and he pats my back and I slowly stop seeing that awful moment of impact.

A shiny Mercedes pulls up.  A window rolls down.  Really.  Because when I'm upset there is nothing I enjoy more than a driver telling me that I'm doing it wrong.  An over-coiffed man informs me in what he thinks is a nice way that he's a doctor and perhaps he can help because obviously I am on a bicycle and having a nervous breakdown and he has his MD and is in a shiny car.

I collect myself and say in a reasonable voice that I saw a squirrel get run over and I'm upset.  The MD says in what he thinks is a helpful way that when the squirrel gets hit it cannot process what has happened to it, the vastness of the trauma.

I don't know what to say to this.  The Contraption Captain uses the word "fuck" which is totally unlike him.  I don't say that it is my understanding that when massive trauma gets inflicted on a human shock gives them some protection from what is happening.  It doesn't provide me any comfort at all that if I get squished into the grill of a Toyota Tundra I won't fully be able to appreciate the extent of my injuries.

So here's the deal.  When they came for the squirrels no one said anything because hey, squirrels, who cares, right?  When they came for the opossums and the raccoons no one said anything then either because who cares.  Then they came for our cats and our dogs and we were kindof bummed out.  And they've come for our children and they say "we didn't see him|her" and we go along with that for some misbegotten reason.  They have come for the motorcyclists.  They've come for the bicyclists, they have definitely come for the bicyclists and they say that we ran that light or we were not wearing a helmet or we had it coming or we "took our chances."

They are the cars on the road and at this point, they've come for everyone.  For each other even.  I don't have a plan here other than if they come for me and you find out?  Don't paint a bicycle white.  Don't send flowers.  Rise up.  Take back your roads.  Slash tires and set fires.  Tear down signs and stop traffic.  Blockade highways.  Because some day, some where, we must end the way they come for us and kill us and continue on up the road.  

The Walls Around Us: a tragedy in two parts

Part 1.

I was bicycling home by myself.  I was on the long straight piece where I can see up the road ahead and, in my rear view mirror, the road behind.  I have a bike lane.  The cars travel fast here but I don't feel unsafe as they have their two or three lanes and I have my skinny little ghetto filled with flat animals and broken glass.

Anyone who bicycles in traffic develops a strong sense of when something is wrong (sociopath at 2 o'clock, evasive maneuvers, cap'n!)  and I am no exception which is how I came to be simultaneously pedaling and trying to figure out what was happening behind me about a half mile back.

It was...a motorcycle.  In the bicycle lane.  Travelling at speed.  It was not a motorcycle darting in and out of the bicycle lane with a warm disregard for anyone's safety, it was a full on "this is the best way to go" motorcycle heading up the bicycle lane scattering bicyclists of all kinds to either side.  The pretties staggered onto the sidewalk, heaving their teal cruisers after themselves.  The roadies forced themselves into traffic.  The elderly Mary Poppin bicyclists stopped and huddled by the curb.  The hipsters stopped and waited for the storm to pass.

Meanwhile the motorcycle accelerated past all the cars on it's left and up the bicycle lane and now it was my turn to make a decision.  I ended up with a sick rabbit thing where I kept pedaling but huddled against the curb, my skinny tires bouncing along the gravel and assorted road junk until the motorcyclist blew by and I got myself back on the steady.

Then of course we are all at a red light together as that's the way this game always goes.  Some asshole nearly kills a bunch of people and we all meet at the next red light.  I notice that the motorcyclist has Colorado license plates.  I memorize the number because I'm good at stupid pet tricks that involve remembering strings of letters and numbers.

Me:  Hey.  You.
Motorcyclist:  [turns towards me]
Me:  Go back to Colorado.

The motorcyclist takes off when the light turns green, moving in front of the other cars until he encounters traffic and then going to his fallback position of travelling in the bicycle lane.  I think about how much I dislike motorcycles.  I think about how loud they are.  I think about how it scares me when they force their way past and I think about how being hit by a motorcyclist would be a lot like being hit by a car.  I think about how I hate it when people equate bicycles and motorcycles as if they were basically the same animal - they're not.

After awhile I think also about how it is always the worst of a tribe that draw attention.  The average motorcyclist doesn't come onto a person's radar like the guy who rides his ugly pig of a machine up the bicycle lane.  The only memorable bicyclist is the one who goes through a red light while a bevy of fat SUVs watch in frustration.  I finish by thinking that vehicles that speed are scary and that if cars pretty much always speed that goes about quadruple for motorcycles.

At least a week goes by during which I am sure that there is no common ground for me between bicycles and motorcycles.  Then I get a message about an accident and I am forced to see things differently.

One day "I didn't see you" will not be an acceptable legal defense.

My youngest (eight years) rides her bicycle to school every day.  This has the usual effect of making me very happy and very terrified at the same time. 

Happy:  so proud! look at my darling daughter!  she loves to bicycle! 
Terrified:  so afraid!  what happens if an SUV comes to close and hurts her!


Through a mixture of my love of bicycling (I really love riding my bicycle) and various strategic defensive practices I  summon enthusiasm for the endeavour and try and minimize danger.  The non-bicyclist responds here with "why do it at all?  don't you have a car?"  Well, we do "it" for a lot of reasons.   We bicycle because if you don't exercise your kids they develop odd nervous behaviours.  We do it because bicycling is a lot more fun than sitting in the backseat of a car and our kids enjoy riding.  We do it because we think it's more right to bicycle a short distance than drive a short distance.  We do it because we think that overall the route is pretty safe.  We do it because we want our kids to learn safe bicycling habits while they are still young enough to respect our opinions.  We do it because we think we can minimize the risk.

How do we (attempt to) minimize risk?

1.  We all wear helmets.  Lately I have been really hating on my helmet so this is a big deal.  I hate the way my helmet blocks some of the sky.  I hate the way it sometimes makes my head itchy.  I wear it anyways.  Some studies show that cars give more room to women with long hair who do not wear helmets but I can't take the risk that I get hit without a helmet and then have to deal with headlines saying "drunk driver hits bicyclist who did not wear a helmet so we know she had it coming, right?  RIGHT?"  I want the headline to read "drunk driver hits bicyclist who was wearing a helmet and no one understands why she was injured anyways."

2.  We ride with the Contraption Captain in front, Rapunzel in the middle, and me in the back.  I stay just to the left of Rapunzel and watch approaching cars carefully.  Fun Fact about being a parent.  You aren't just willing to throw your bike and your body in between your child and a dangerous car, you are GRATEFUL for the chance to be crushed so that your kid can live to adulthood and your only worry is that your death may cause her emotional trauma. 

3.  We are relatively slow.  Even when we have a green light we approach pretty slowly because of the risk that some asshat wanting to take a right at that light will say "hey, I let that big red bicycle go but two more bicyclists is way the hell too many to wait for.  The blonde kid on the 8-gear is going to have to be toast."  Note to that guy?  If you ever touch a hair on her head I will find you and tear your kneecaps out without benefit of anaesthesia.  No, really.  I will. 

4.  We are very law abiding.  This means that yes we stop at stop signs and slow down when we see a yellow light.  Just like those law abiding cars do.  Hahaha!  Just kidding.  The car has not been made that slows down for a yellow light when it is hurling itself towards an extreme mani-pedicure.

5.  ...and I ride somewhat unpredictably.

This last one is kindof new for me.  I've always ridden the "be predictable" horse really hard.  I apply it to crosswalks where I call out bicyclists who ride on the sidewalk and then bounce down into the crosswalk at speed as being a problem.  Google "bicycle predictable" and you get the following front page hits:

Seattle Bicycle Club - Responsible Cyclists Are Predictable

Be Predictable - Being predictable means doing what drivers expect you to do, and not surprising them.

Nice Ride MN - Safety Be predictable. Drivers and walkers need to be able to anticipate your movements.  

Haha and just for contrast you also get this one:

twin city sidewalks: Another Predictable Bicycle Tragedy

So yes.  Talk to bicyclists and they will tell you to be predictable, to do what drivers expect you to do and for crissakes don't surprise the cars or they may turn on you like an angry drunk and crush you into the curb. 

So here's the thing.  I'll be bicycling in the bike lane behind Rapunzel.  I'll notice a car approaching way too fast.  I notice that the car has a wheel in the bike lane and as I watch it swerves in a little closer.  I respond by feigning a small epileptic seizure, I make my bicycle shudder from the left to the right.  I do not leave the bicycle lane but I come up the the line, twitch spasmodically, and then stagger in the direction of the curb.  And while riding my bicycle as if I had centipedes in my helmet (ewww!) I watch the cars in my mirror and guess what:  They get the hell out of the way.  They veer back out of the bicycle lane and turn towards the center of the road.  How come?  Unpredictable bicyclists are weird and scary and it's best to give them extra room because who knows that kind of random bullshit they might get up to.  Unpredictable bicyclists are like the homeless drunk guy who is wandering around in the park unzipping his fly --- you give him some room unless you relish being peed on. 

So all I am saying is, sure, I guess, be predictable.  Don't throw yourself under the wheels of an approaching bus.  But don't be too predictable either.  Every time there is a fresh car to bicycle accident or car to motorcycle or car to pedestrian accident I hear the same old tired refrain.  "I didn't see them."  And then everyone nods understandingly.  "A tragedy.  The car did not see the bicyclist.  Very sad but understandable really."  They do not see because they do not look, so be open to the idea that there will be times when you do not want to be predictable, when you must make them look.  Try this experiment:  when you see a car that is too close in your mirror (you have a mirror, right?) lean towards them, twitch towards them.... and watch what happens, does the car move away?

off the wagon and rolling downhill very fast

The seasons are exerting their delicate change here in the bay area which means that some mornings are overcast and occasionally my hands get cold if I do not wear gloves.  Soon the time change will come and plunge my commute home into darkness.  I think I'll hand out more lights this year cause it's better to light a candle etc. etc.

I am currently exiting a particularly egregious phase of personal aggression against cars, something I liken to an alcholic having a drink and then going on a binge of pissed-offed-ness.  I know I should be calm and mannerly and I know that if I antagonize the wrong car it might go nuts and tear my leg off but I can't seem to always get a lid on the instinct to let dangerous drivers know that I am unhappy with them. 

So here, for your amusement, my latest instances of going berserk.  Terrible language is ahead (I love bad language and can curse like a sailor) so if you're the easily offended type best be heading over to one of the blogs about how to bicycle and look pretty at the same time.

I'm on my way to work, thinking about a particular problem I am trying to solve and watching the road and the cars.  I am in a bicycle lane.  Ahead is a red light.  I need to make a left turn at that light and so I must cross two lanes and settle myself into the left turn only lane.  I stick out my arm and signal my desire to go left.  I look in my mirror and over my shoulder and a car yields to me and I move over one lane.  I signal more and look more and move over the next lane, at which point an angry minivan stomps on the gas and speeds by me on my right gesturing rudely at me out their open window.  The driver's face says "bicyclists are so dangerous, it's shocking how they act all surprised when cars hit and kill them."  I see the man's arm waving around and I stab in his general direction with my middle-finger because as far as I am concerned he can fuck his bad attiude with a rusted coat hanger if he thinks I don't deserve to make a safe and lawful left hand turn as I commute to work. 

Now we are of course all sitting at the red light that he wanted to get to first.

I'm mad.

I take a deep breath and use my powerful lungs to bellow "I WAS TURNING LEFT, YOU FLACCID DICKED ASSHOLE." 

The parked cars around me all inhale sharply and I realize that the majority of people commuting to work are men.  Their faces convey anxiety.  "Who is this woman and how does she know my dick is limp?"  One gentleman in a yellow convertible has gotten extra of my voice and looks particularly worried. 

I sigh and attempt to clarify, this time shouting "I AM TALKING TO THE HONDA ODYSSEY IN THE RIGHT LANE, NOT THE YELLOW SPORTS CAR."  Everyone turns and stares in the direction of the Honda Odyssey.  I watch, smugly, as he quickly rolls up his window.  Corvette guy spots the Odyssey and then points at it and starts laughing. 

Ok that was bad but also incredibly fun for me.  It totally turned around the feeling of having some disapproving guy with thinning hair chastising me as he revved the engine and passed me way the fuck too close. 

All is quiet for a few days until I am not so much cut off as forced off the road (towards oncoming traffic for those p by an SUV driver speeding towards yet another red light.  I arrive at the red light a few moment later and stare gloomily into her rear view mirror.  She did not so much cut me off as never see me at all.  She's busy with her cell phone.  I frown.  I study the back of her shiny Merceded SUV.  It has one of those family groups on the back:  Daddy in a tie.  Mommy in an apron.  Cute girl with big bow.  Cute boy in shorts.  Dog with tongue hanging out.  "Fuck you and fuck your family" I think to myself.  "Talking on your fucking cell phone when you should be watching out for other people ont he road."  I peer closer at the car.  The family people are not stickers.

They are magnets. 

I brighten.  I lean forward and abruptly pick the Mommy sticker off the back of the SUV and tuck it in my backpack.  The light turns and I pedal away.  Two intersections on I put the Mommy magnet onto the back of a blue Porsche Boxster driven by a doughy man who is busy texting his accountant.  I smile fondly at my handiwork as he guns the engine and drives away.  So yeah, from one Mommy to another?  Fuck you and your thoughtless driving. 

And since we are on the subject, a nod to my active fantasy life...

One day, if all goes well, I will be waiting behind one of those cars with "truck nuts" hanging off the back.  And I will lean forward with my wire cutters and snip-snip.  And then I'll take a picture.  And then I'll toss those balls into the recycling.