Road Rage Walking

I am a layed back driver. I don't get upset if I get cut off, as long as my life didn't flash before my eyes. No one will let me in or over? No big. I'll get over when I can and back track if it is necessary. I drive, consistently, five miles under the speed limit. (Granted, here in Baltimore that is asking for another driver to yell at or curse me; but then, so is stopping at a red light.)

So, basically, I don't do road rage. I have, on occasion, had to drag my own mother back in the car after she prepared to launch herself out of her window and fistfight a woman on our small town street. My boyfriend is consistently requiring me to remind him that stalking the person who nearly ran us into the cement wall, or forgot to use ablinker, is a risky-at best-proposition. But, again, I don't do road rage.

However. Oh, however. The story is significantly different when I am walking and, living in the city, I walk everywhere. Being a wise pedestrian I am wary. Even when I have the right-of-way, my walk signal all bright and white and metaphorically wavin' me forward, I look both ways. I watch for turners. I watch for those who think the cross walk is where their front bumper belongs during a red light. My motto is caution, spiced with a little aggressiveness when need be.

The other day, I am crossing the street in my usual watchful fashion when, low and behold, a man turns without stopping at his red light. He also does not signal. And, to top off his offenses, he looks at me and, when I pause in the middle of the street so he can go, points one long index finger at me and nods as if to say, "That's right. Don't you go, little girl."

I could see myself, suddenly and vividly, flinging myself through this man's open window and biting into that offensive pointing finger. I wanted to run up next to him and give him a lecture on right-of-way and courtesy and any other thing that came tripping off my tongue. Afterall, if he doesn't stop for pedestrians at cross walks he also probably doesn't tip his wait staff and certainly eats small babies.

I thought, briefly, about letting the next driver to encroach on my walkway plow me down. Maybe in his horror at watching me go under his wheels he would realize he should look out--particularly in a city, particularly near a college--for pedestrians.

Then, of course, it occurred to me that some random stranger never driving again, or never encroaching on a cross walk again, would be of little comfort while I was tooling around in my sparkly new wheelchair--or worse. But this realization came later. Much, much later. Like, thirty minutes later. ("Briefly considered" having been an exaggeration to make me look more sane.) In that moment, though, if Pointer Man had paused his car, I would have yanked his door open and lit in, and I can't be sure if I mean "lit in" strictly metaphorically.

And while today, three days after "The Event", I am a calmer version of the woman who wanted to fling herself bodily on top of a moving vehicle, break the windshield, and launch its driver into the wind, I am still not entirely calm about it.

Is there a moral to this rant? It could be, "Hey, drivers. Watch where you are going--remember the greener way to travel is also fragile in comparison." Perhaps: You never know what lurks beneath a normal exterior. Even a note to pedestrians which we all are at one point or another (particularly us college going folk): Be wary and be aware. Of course, it is more likely that the moral is just that I need yoga or Prozac if I am to continue walking around anywhere but a hiking trail. Then again, are four wheelers allowed on those?


Three things I have found in the last week: My name is Tabitha, and I have Road Rage Walking. I meant Star Trek last week, not Star Wars--which saddens me that extra little bit to have missed. And, finally, there is a TV lounge on the 4th floor of the Student Center. (Color me clueless.)

Three things I still need to find: Time to exercise regularly--that is, outside of walking my dogs. One of them is twelve and had back surgery a few years ago. You couldn't call walking him intense cardio. Patience. (For obvious reasons.) And a great hairdresser--on a student budget.