Real Jerks

In my quest to get down to my fighting weight, I’ve been doing the brisk-walk thing. If time is pressing, I only do 1.3 miles a night (to the main road and back). If it’s the weekend, then just shy of 3 miles (a long loop round the backroads of my house). Last night, after Patch’s soccer game and before dinner, I had enough time to squeeze in a short walk.

There are a couple of streets that bisect the main roads in my neighborhood where people tend to drive way too fast. 40, 45 in a 25 m.p.h. zone. A few of the main roads, though, have those white pedestrian lines where, in my town, the law states that vehicles must give the right of way to the person crossing the street.

You know where this is heading.

Last night I was doing an extra-brisk walk and entered the road via the pedestrian lines. And sure enough a dark blue economy car was barreling down at me. I stopped short, then began walking again to time it perfectly that after the idiot sped by I’d cross without missing more than a beat or two off my time.

He slams on his brakes.

I stop, and wave him through.

He rolls down his window.

I wave him through again.

“You can go,” he says.

I smile and chuckle. “I don’t want to get hit.”

“I’m not going to hit you,” he says. He sounds friendly.

So I do the half-wave and nod as I cross in front of his car.

Then, he says, “I saw you speed up to go into the road …” and I can tell he wants to litigate this minor incident from his point of view.

I am in no mood for conversation. I’m not going to argue that he was going too fast or that he had no intention of stopping for the white pedestrian lines. I want to get my walk done in the fastest time possible. I continue walking.

He calls me a word that begins with the letter-A, tells me to F-off, and immediately races away as I turn back.

Some people are imbalanced. It could be the person behind you in the line at the deli counter, the person in the car next to you at a red light, or the person that works in the cubicle outside your office door. It’s scary.

So I used the coward’s name-calling to fuel my self-improvement. I went to the basement gym and banged out three sets with higher reps on the dumbbells. Now, as I type this, I am fresh from my Saturday morning 3-mile walk, ready to do another triple-set workout.

“Whatever doesn’t kill you must make you stronger.”