Adventures on a Bike, Part 2
You know no one likes a biker. It’s true. You people in cars hate waiting for cyclists. You people walking hate having to move aside for a bike to fly past. It’s just a fact. So if I get a dirty look now and then, I deal with it and get on with life.
One particularly nice, early summer day, I’m riding along, thinking how blessed I am that I live in such a beautiful town with such fantastic people (the undergrads weren’t around, remember) and have such a perfect family. Nothing can ruin my mood.
I throw my hands out wide “king of the world” Titanic style, speeding down the hill a la Meg Ryan just before she gets slammed by a truck in that movie with Nicholas Cage from a million years ago, and when I slow down at the end, I’m coming up upon a sweet little old lady.
“Excuse me!” I sing it out sweet and in-love-with-life style.
No response. Nothing new. Plus, she’s old so she’s probably deaf.
“Excuse me, ma’am, coming by on your right!”
Still no response, but she’s enough on the left that it’s fine for me to ride right on by, I just don’t want to shock the living daylights out of poor old granny.
One last try as I pedal by, not too fast, not too slow, “Good evening, ma’am! Coming by!”
“Shit!” she yells as I pass by her. If this was all I’d heard, I would have continued to assume I’d misheard, just as I immediately did. But no, she continued.
“Fuc*ing bikers! Should all go to Hel*!”
Apparently all is NOT right with the world. Old ladies do NOT swear when all is right with the world. Do they?
Ha! Yeah - maybe a little hearing impaired. She probably thought that she was muttering under her breath.
ReplyDeleteDon't you think City of Angels was a little weird? Most women I (think that I) know would run, not walk, away from anyone half as creepy as Nicholas Cage's character seemed. Just sayin'.
hahaha that is terrible! But funny.
ReplyDeleteI like bikers. I only dislike them when they choose not to obey the traffic laws in NYC. It's frustrating to be a pedestrian and see that happy little walk light just to have a biker swear at you because they would like to run the red. Apparently that is legal. Except not. It is equally annoying to them that people jaywalk, I'm sure!
no, all is not right with the world. I don't mind bikers too much as long as they ride straight and not swerve towards me making me piss in my pants.
ReplyDeleteLee Ryan - That was my only explanation, that she really must have thought I couldn't hear her. It wasn't like she was yelling at me...
ReplyDeleteAs for City of Angels, I wholeheartedly agree, CREEPY!! I always wondered why more people didn't think that, but maybe it's only because I didn't ever ask!
Kate and Chief - I promise not to disobey (too many) traffic laws, or hit either of you. I do a lot to avoid running into people...even stupid undergrads...
I have scared the crap out of so many walkers. Lol. And where I ride it's a BIKE TRAIL, but walkers think THEY own it and get pissy when we bikers "sneak up" on them. I always laugh a little when I do it.
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