so let me tell you about the other day. it was a beautiful day. (again.) (my god this city is beautiful.) (but i digress.) i was starting my fabulous new job that beautiful afternoon. (yes, afternoon. for those of you who've figured out i'm a bit of a night owl, you can imagine how deleriously blissed out i was when i was told my training (for a theatre gig, did i mention that?) started at 3 pm...)
i kicked off the day with a slow, sumptuous tea-sippin morning in my fabulous friend's stunning home. (which she graciously found a way to get me the keys to when i suddenly appeared back in town while she was away; woohoo to her and yay for me!) and then i prepared to "dash off to work" - allowing myself a very luxurious hour to cycle down to my beautiful new "office" - a gorgeous park overlooking the gorgeous ocean, and oh so conveniently right off the gorgeous seaside bike trail.
did i mention it was a beautiful day? flecks of wedding dress cotton candy frolicked in an aegean sky. it was a hot summer day, but with none of that smog-heat-humidity-from-hell i'd grown to cower from back in the old homeland.
humming, smiling, admiring and riding, i plunged into my day. at one point, i found myself needing to cross a busy street. in my stupid-grinned cyclandering, i'd lingered too long one one bike trail and had strayed a half block too far to join up with the ritzy seaside trail. but ah, look! a half block back sat the brightly painted slash slash slash of white perpendicularising the busy street and connecting right to the blessed path i'd been seeking! a sign, to be sure, from the gods. (or bike trail engineers.)
so i moseyed on over to the crosswalk, leaned back in my bike's sadistic seat (well, it can't all be purrfect, can it!?) and waited for the cars to pass. now let me be clear: vancouver is a pedestrian's paradise. if i had *wanted* to cross at that very moment, i could have. the slightest gesture of intent would have inspired an immediate vehicular ceasefire.
as it was, it turned out all i needed to do was admire the beautiful sky. because as i was doing so, i heard a lull in the traffic hum: oh, my turn! but in fact, a kind man had stopped his charging car for lil ol' me! how gallant! i waved and smiled at him and made my way to the median that seperated the opposing directions. and i paused there, waiting for the lone oncoming car to pass.
and don't you just know it, once again the kind car had stopped for lil ol' me. "well golly gosh," i said to myself, "isn't this just the loveliest day in the friendliest city this side of happy land? shucks."
as i wheeled across that last side of the street, i lifted my head to wave at, and smile at the driver. la la la-la! and man, talk about a shock to the system when i looked up and witnessed a perhaps beautiful woman's face contort into tex averian animosity. i rode by in frozen horror, suddenly beholding the mad mug of beelzebub itself. i felt my face contort into confusion as her eyebrows fused into a jagged hedge, her eyes wide and rolling, her mouth contorted by hate.
"YOU'RE NOT A PEDESTRIAN!!!" she shouted, gesticulating madly.
(you don't say)
i couldn't even begin to imagine what the hell her problem was, so i hastily retraced our brief encounter's steps. well, i hadn't cut her off. i had paused patiently in the median, and she had willingly stopped for me. so perhaps her foam-lipped words held the clue. i'm not a pedestrian. right. well, perhaps the issue is that bicycles not allowed to use "pedestrian" crosswalks, and it's a cause that is very dear to her heart. well, if bikes can't use 'em, colour me ignorant and i'd love it if someone could clear that up for me. most especially because while it was perhaps not specifically indicated by signs in this case, quite often these city-planned paths *specifically* (i.e. as directed by white-on-green-signs) cross these sacred crosswalks. so if it's "illegal" or "wrong", someone should talk to the city, cuz that's a big problem...
so... would it have been better if i'd dismounted and walked across? i mean, it would have made me a "pedestrian." but would that not have slowed the process, potentially causing her head to literally explode? cuz i ain't joshin ya when i say she didn't look too far from it as it was...
still today i haven't the foggiest clue in hell what she needed me to do. and that was frustrating. but mostly, i just feel bad for her. she had done something nice - pausing her precious day to allow a smiling stranger to pass. (even though i would happily have waited the 0.8 seconds for her to drive by before crossing...) but instead of appreciating her moment of generosity, she decided it was actually a perfect moment to unleash the volcano of vitriole she'd been drowning in since/because of ...? who knows. maybe she'd had a fight with her asshole husband. maybe she had irritable bowel syndrome. maybe her daughter had died in a cycling accident while cycling across a crosswalk.
what do i know of it.
all i know is suddenly, i found myself flailing in her tidal wave of negativity, and my mellow was seriously harshed. well, certainly surprised. shocked a little. and so, what was i supposed to do with this fresh load of shit? ingest it as i ingest everything life tosses at me? and then what, get all irate? take it out on some other unsuspecting innocent? get pissed off at that first fella: "he should have just kept going so i could cross when there was a healthy lull and nobody would have been inconvenienced!!!" get pissed at this woman who might be having a rough moment/day/week/year and had decided to take that out on everyone who should stumble across her puerile path because she hadn't figured out how to cope with the real problem in her own fucking world?
well, i guess i could have done that. i'll admit, i contemplated it for a second. but then i just shrugged, smiled for the kind man who wanted to do something nice for a fellow human on the side of the road, sighed a little for that poor miserable woman who hated that same stranger and hoped she felt better soon, and cycled on my merry little way.
No comments:
Post a Comment