See You Next Tuesday

6.4.2kX

Oh what fun it is to be a bike-commuter in a city of cars! If there's a list of possible car/bike-bike/car interactions, I'd love to see it and start checking off the ones I've had. Right turn into me? Check. Dead-stop in front of me? Check. Death-threats yelled at me? Oh hell yes. And on, and on, and on.

But last week, oddly enough, I had two unique car/bike interactions.

1. First thing to note is that I'm the only bicyclist in LA that stops at stop signs*. (*While I don't actually stop at all stop signs, I definitely slow down and look to see if anyone's coming. If someone is coming, I'll stop. This REALLY confuses drivers.) That said, I approached a four-way stop just before a car on my right reached the stop. Knowing it was my go, I made sure she saw me and was yielding. She was. I went. Just as I went, I heard a pickup behind me going too! It was a two-fer! I've poached many a car proceeding through a stop, but never had a car or pickup join my right-of-way. This is precisely why I don't stop at stop signs: It's too dangerous! The fool behind you won't stop and will run you the fuck over!

2. I was stuck at a red light trying to cross a surprisingly busy narrow residential street. (Its busyness attributable to it being an alternate to the dreadful Lincoln Blvd.) The street had parallel-parked cars so dense that one, say, stuck at the light, could not see down the street to see if anyone was coming so that they could cross (in other words, run the red.) So there I was, trying to see to my left, when, to my right, I heard, "Get ooooooouuutt of the waaaaaay." It came from the driver of a shitty-looking SUV who was trying to see down the impossible-to-see-down street and take a right-on-red. I - while being perfectly within my right to the road - was in her way of seeing.
So I said, "What??!? Fuck you!"
She said, "Fuck YOU!"
So I called her a goddamn cunt. A clear escalation. The Nuclear Option. Gals do NOT like being called cunts.
She reacted to being called that so coolly it suggested she'd been called it before.
I suspect she had. Many times.


Tonight - The Homestead.

Happy Birthday Lee Lee the Musical Bee!!! Hope it's epic!!


bye-ee!

whrr ... clik!