Caveat Pedestris

Disclaimer: This post contains extremely strong language. In consideration of my readers with delicate sensibilities, I have asterisked out most of the letters in all cuss words involving sexual acts or organs. Hopefully enough consonants remain to give you at least a flavor of the conversation described below.  

I’m a fairly timid person when it comes to physical danger. You’ll never catch me bouncing  around at the end of a bungee cord, or leaping out of an airplane with a few square yards of thin silk between me and certain death, or scaling a sheer rock face with a couple of crampons and a bag of chalk. I go to great lengths to keep my exercise safe and sedate. Never run when you can walk, that’s my motto. Or at least it was until yesterday. Now I know that even walking can be a life-threatening activity.

Ambling along the main road into town yesterday, I came to a small side street just as a cherry red half ton truck approached the intersection on my left. It was a two way stop. Expecting the truck to at least slow down at the corner, I stepped confidently off the curb, then leapt quickly back up to the safety of the sidewalk when it became apparent the driver had either not seen the stop sign or had decided the instruction on it did not apply to him.

The truck sped out of the side street and crossed three (miraculously empty) traffic lanes on the main road before veering sharply to avoid colliding with a low-slung black sports car traveling in the fourth lane. Both drivers slammed on their brakes and powered down their windows.

“F***k**g freak!” yelled the old man in the truck, his face as red the paint on vehicle.

“What the f**k is wrong with you, man?” shouted the young man in the sports car.

Clearly unsatisfied with this response to his opening remark, and perhaps believing he was protected by the size of his truck and his advanced age, the old man upped the expletive ante. “Get off your g**d**n phone when you’re f***k**g driving, you f***k**g c**t!!”

The young man opened the door of his sports car and unfolded approximately six-and-a-half feet of Rambo-style muscle, formidably displayed in spandex bicycle shorts and a cutoff T-shirt, from the driver’s seat. Still clutching his cell phone, his jaw pushed forward with belligerence, he strode toward the truck bellowing, “You senile old fart! You could have killed me!”

My sentiments exactly, I thought.

Color faded from the old man’s face. Apparently deciding that neither his truck nor the birth date on his driver’s license constituted adequate protection from an angry giant, he stomped down on the gas pedal and peeled off down the main road. Still watching the young man in his side mirror, he ran a red light at the next intersection, causing a massive cacophony of horns and squealing brakes, but (miraculously) no actual collisions.

As he walked back to his sports car, the young man pressed his phone to his ear and began excitedly describing his near-death experience to the person on the other end of the line. Still talking, he folded himself back into his car. Steering with one hand while he continued to talk into his phone, he swerved across the three (miraculously still empty) traffic lanes and entered the side street I was once again attempting to cross.

I leapt back up onto the curb as the sports car whooshed by, missing me with inches to spare, then waited until there were absolutely no cars anywhere in sight before scurrying across the street.