The other day marked the end of summer. Perhaps not on the annual record, but in my own life. You see, I was walking to work and the last jerk of the hot season tried to run me down in the crosswalk. He missed, but it was the last attempted vehicular homicide I anticipate while wearing short sleeves until in April.
This is his picture. Not only was he callous enough to turn left in front of oncoming traffic, but he missed me by about 2 feet as he roared through the crosswalk. Silly me, I figured since the arrow went red, and the traffic had started to move my way there was no way anyone was crazy enough to turn left. I underestimated this twit. To add to the fun, he drove less than 50 feet past me and parked. I greeted him in the way that only bearded guys with shaved heads at 6′ and 300 pounds can: obscenely. I believe my exact words were “Smile, &*%^&%*.”
The Final twit of the summer.
Normally I wouldn’t post a picture like this one. It might be considered rude. But when I confronted him he was miffed that I’d objected to his trying to run me over. He had a good reason for his reckless behavior: “I can’t be late for court.”
Yup, he was headed to the courthouse a block away from where he ran the fat guy in the crosswalk out of a couple of thousand minutes of his life. I pointed out that vehicular manslaughter will land him back in court. His clever retort was, “What do you want me to do?”
I suggested he apologize and quit running through occupied crosswalks. He returned to his very important reason that he couldn’t afford to be late for court.
So, with that happy moment in my personal rearview mirror, I bid farewell to summer. It has been a long one with no less than 6 people blowing redlights/stopsigns/turn signals and blasting through the crosswalk I was occupying. In the 20 years plus that I’ve been walking around the city to work, that is a personal record. People are so distracted by their electronics, and their poor planning, that they are willing to take a life so that they can finish that all-important Facebook post of their cat passing gas.
I confirmed that it is fall this morning, when some idiot in an SUV started to turn through my crosswalk with no signal on his vehicle. I was wearing long sleeves. He was mad that I’d delayed him. I hope he drops that pumpkin-spice chai in his lap.
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