Life Preservers

Hey Now

May 7, 2012 at 10:16 am 1 comment

Running multiple errands on my lunch hour, I found myself backing out of a parking space in a mall parking lot designed by a schizophrenic whose every personality is a sadist, from in-between two SUVs that hadn’t been there when I first parked, into a thruway of moderately heavy car and pedestrian traffic. I was going slowly, inching out, and finally got a break.

Let me note here that there was a crosswalk about 6 spaces down, i.e., nowhere near my car but not so very far for a healthy adult to walk to. Let me also note that I had already paused for about 12 cars and at least as many J-walking (J is for jagoff) pedestrians during my inching out until one kind motorist (who may or may not have been more focused on the space I was vacating than on a random act of kindness but still) stopped and waved me out. I checked all angles, sides, etc., and eased back. As I stopped, still a bit more vertical than horizontal due to the length of the SUVs blocking my turning radius, to put the car into drive, some lady steps blatantly off the sidewalk at my rear-right fender (i.e., nowhere near aforementioned crosswalk) and walks directly toward the back of my car without varying her steps an inch, without hurrying, without pausing, without glancing in any direction. She did not veer from her path. She walked slowly. She walked haughtily. She did not even glance at me or perform any nod or wave or twitch that could maybe-possibly be interpreted as a thank-you or pardon me sort of gesture. She sauntered (Sauntered!) past my passenger window with about 3 millimeters to spare.

She was young enough to move faster. I’d say 30s. Heavy, overdone makeup. Overly styled hair. Clothes that screamed “the latest fashion” too loudly to be fashionable.

She was obviously someone VERY important.

The kindly driver had remained amazingly patient, along with about 10 other cars lined up behind him at this point and another 5 or 6 now coming in the other direction, and I was able to complete my back-up and drive on to my next stop, to pick up lunch at the Giant Eagle at the far end of the same mall.

As I drove, I marveled at the adult-sized morons bursting out of doorways, right off sidewalks, into traffic, talking on cell phones or blue tooth gadgets, texting, trailing children, and waddling like blind ducks with vertigo and I marveled that the news reports so few pedestrian injuries

I parked again and made my way to a crosswalk. I stopped. A car was coming and it did not appear to be slowing down for the cross-walk.  I made one of those mostly shoulder, fake steps, to make sure she saw me there, in the crosswalk. And she did, a bit suddenly, come to a stop. She saw me.

And, oh, I saw her.

It was the Sauntering Lady of Great Importance!

Nice.

I. me. thod. i. call. y. stepped. for.ward. mov. ing. through. the. cross. walk. step. by. step. star. ing. at. the. ground. and. mov. ing. so. slow. ly. that. it. was. hard. so. hard. to. keep. a. straight. face. step. by. step. try. ing. not. to. look. up. or. gig. gle.

And you know how it is when you’re trying not to smile. As soon as I stepped out of the crosswalk and through the doors of Giant Eagle, my oh-sweet-goody bit o’ secret revenge popped out into an eye-sparkling grin just as I lifted up my eyes into a direct line of sight with a good-looking delivery man who stopped his cart, took a Kramerly pose, smiled broadly back, and said, “Hey now! How are you doin’ today?”

Indeed. I’m doin’ fine.

Entry filed under: Humor - Commentary.