I was walking across “the” street today, and almost got to the other side when at 1:00 I saw a car turning right, towards me. I was about 10′ from the sidewalk, in the intersection. It wasn’t going particularly fast, this car, but it wasn’t slowing down to avoid hitting me. So, what did I do when I realized that I might be in danger? I stopped walking, and at practically the same time this woman -she was an older woman possibly in her late 40’s, fair-skinned but maybe hebraic or mediterranean – hit her brakes. I looked at her as she stopped suddenly and she had the telltale O-shaped mouth and I’m sure if her windows were open I would have heard a good, solid “Ohhhhhh!” when she realized she was about to hit me. And then I continued walking down to Prompt Printers where I photocopied the program booklet for H.P. Lovecraft Birthday Party
7 Replies to “O!”
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I HAVE to ask. Why did you put “the” in quotation marks? I think I sort of get it, but I sort of don’t. It’s like, The street, whhich street is that?
Why don’t you say “I was walking across a street”? I have no answer for that.
It all goes back to me and Chris Woods, there was some educational short or something on TV easily 10 years ago, and it had some kind of factoid like “if you unwound your brain it would stretch across the street” (it wasn’t unwinding your brain, but you know what I mean). So our rhetorical question to the TV was “what do you mean ‘the street’ – WHAT street?” since there are lots of different streets with lots of different widths. So, without going into the fact that I was crossing 12th Ave northbound at Oak, I just quoted “the”. You see? It’s all very convoluted.
The short claimed that if all of the growing energy in one’s full head of many hairs was combined into one single hair it would grow acoss ‘the’ street in one day. Being a bald person I am offended by the gross bias against myself and the hair-challenged community. I plan to file a lawsuit citing ‘mental anguish’ and ‘loss of enjoyment’. I think the stress of that short is what caused may hair to fall out in the first place. Bastards!
um… DID she hit you? this late 40’s, mediterreanean woman? cause from your description, we could probably find her.
p.s. i think a standard street is 33 feet wide.
I’ve done lots of walking around Los Angeles (yes, that makes me a weirdo here) and many’s the time that a car has not given me my right of way. My standard response now is to kick or punch the car. If you are close enough for me to hit your car, you should have stopped and let me walk. Just a warning to any drivers out there. I don’t think I’d try this in an intersection like you were. I just get the hell out of the way.
Something I learned from one of my many trips to traffic school is that it’s illegal for a driver to “endanger” a pedestrian. You don’t have to touch them, but if you come close enough that they have to move out of the way, or are shocked, or whatever, the driver can be ticketed (think it’s a misdemenaor, but still).
At least, that’s how they do it here in America. I think it also means pedestrians have the right to shoot at drivers first, but drivers can’t respond without provocation, and only with handheld weapons, not vehicular weaponry.