Ducks

9.1.2014

Not working from home for most of the summer and actually getting out into the world, I'm stunned at just how oblivious people "out there" are to what is going on around them.  I'm referring to, naturally, drivers.

I lost count of people on their phones when I tried to count them, and I tried to count them every day.  They're talking on them (most while holding the phone up to their ear like they were on the kitchen phone (in the old days when there were phones in kitchen)),  flipping through something (Facebook, iTunes, text scroll, whatever) or pecking out something (you know).

Also in total oblivion are countless others that just. aren't. there.  Sure they're in the driver's seat, sure their hands are on the wheel, foot on the gas, but they're not aware of the traffic around them, the color of the light, the stripe of the lane or the motherfuckin' PEOPLE in the crosswalk.  This last one really irks me because I have to cross a street in a crosswalk every day.

The crosswalk is the one between my home and Ez's school.  The street it crosses is a quiet residential street that isn't anything like a quiet residential street.  The LA fuckwits have found a way to avoid the menacing, unpredictable parking lots that are the main arteries through the city simply by either clogging the small streets, or racing down them as if they were bigger boulevards.  The crosswalk I need to use gets both kinds of drivers.  Some close up every last inch between their car and the car in front of it.  No way will anyone merge in front of me!  I ain't letting anyone turn!  Others hit the fuckin' gas and narrowly miss clipping that car coming out of the neighborhood.  Doin' 40 down the road doesn't leave one much reaction time, let alone time for pedestrians in crosswalks get safely across.  I get one of each, usually every day.  I fuckin' hate it when the driver who doesn't yield gives you an "oops, sorry" -look, but even more irksome is the zombie that doesn't even notice the signs, blinkers, stripes or people waiting to cross.  These bastards are the worst.

So today, just this morning, Ez and I dodged the car standing on the stripes of the crosswalk while stuck in standing traffic on the way to school.  On the way home, my side was clear, but someone was gunning down the road on the other side.  I stepped off, fully anticipating getting a chance to yell, "FUCKWIT!!" at them when the dude braked.  Hard.  He totally didn't want to, but I sorta forced the issue.  It's an idiotic thing to do, but I get a small kick out of it.  Making people do shit they don't wanna do is fun!

Tonight - House of Shields  (the venerable Majesty of New Montgomery)

bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!