Pedestrian Rage and the Desire to Roundhouse Kick Cars
It took me a couple of years to come to this realization, but I have a new biggest fear; requiring emergency assistance/care. Why? Well, simply put, I live in the vicinity of Boston. For those requiring further explanation, Boston has about as good a reputation for driving as the stereotypical Asian female. In fact, I would say Boston beats that stereotype by a “Boston Bump“.
It isn’t that Bostonians are rubberneckers or slow drivers really- almost quite the opposite. Massholes, as MA drivers are affectionately dubbed, are oblivious and self-centered. It is as if the road was created only for their car and no one else has, is, or ever will drive on that road while they are on it. To a true Masshole, the turn signal is nothing more than a perplexing question on a driver’s ed test. They couldn’t even tell you where it can be found in their car.
In MA there is a pedestrian law that allows someone to walk through the crosswalk whenever they damn well please. However, there seems there is an unwritten law that Massholes can hit and run on these pedestrians whenever they damn well please. Turns out those laws conflict… or match up nicely, if you are a Masshole. To the Boston driver, cyclists are effectively potholes. The only reason they aren’t hit as frequently as pedestrians is because the bike can really do a number on the axle and underside of a car.
Logic doesn’t apply to driving- moving forward always applies to driving. There is always that one asshole that stops for me to cross in the crosswalk and gets pissed that I don’t take that moment to walk… into my impending death because there is an ENTIRE STRING OF ONCOMING TRAFFIC NOT STOPPING COMING THE OTHER WAY. Oh, why thank you for being so kind as to obey the law… let me just demonstrate what my insides look like at 40pmh.
*dramatic reenactment
There is also the asshole that speeds up when you are in a crosswalk. He’s a good mile down the road, but by the time you’ve taken some 3 steps across the street, he is beeping at you for having taken your right of way. What were you thinking?! But seriously, what is this- a game of chicken? Is the goal that I then stay in the crosswalk as long as I can like a staredown? Is that how I win? In a way it is kinda cool, because I sort of feel like I have some magnetic pull on vehicles. They can’t help by speed up to get closer to me. My only hope is the good fortune to get a little love tap from the Masshole that drives a Bentley. Mmm, guaranteed trust fund…. for my children’s children’s children! I should be so lucky.
There are also the Mass drivers that give me pedestrian rage. Imagine this, if you will (cue the Wayne’s World dream sequence sound effect). You woke up late TOTALLY forgetting you had to do something at your office in 5 minutes. Problem- you live 20 minutes from the office. You throw on something that resembles an outfit you picked out yourself when you were 3 y.o. that your mom didn’t have the heart to tell you was ugly as sin, grab your bag, and make the mad dash to work. You’re making pretty good pace when you realize you are nearing an intersection and would prefer to stay in one piece, so you look both ways. Damn, you gotta stop until the little white dude shows up on the traffic light. Well, maybe not- there’s only car coming up the road and maybe it’s turning. Oh no, no turn signal… looks like you have to wait. Hold on- what? WHAT?! You just waited for that prick to turn left when you could have been AT the office already. But no, now you have to know that kind of Masshole exists. You could have lived happily in your existence, and the driver in theirs, never having had to worry about the other… but they destroyed this dream you have had for your life. Crushed it. You try explaining to your boss that you are late because of an asshole that crushed your dreams, but it is too late- you’re fired. Until you tell them you are a pedestrian, and then they completely understand your plight and hire you again.
So what does all this have to do with my new fear? Tonight was the third time in so many days that I saw an ambulance or firetruck encounter the dumbf**k driver that thinks, “I can make it, I can make it, if I just try!”, and shoots out into the intersection or street just in front of the emergency vehicle and inevitably has to pull over to the side of the road anyhow, so they should have stayed where they were planted. Oh, but they can’t pull over, because everyone else with a morsel of a brain has already done that and there is no where left to go, creating a total roadblock. Thanks Masshole, I’m dead now. It was just a simple grease fire when you were stationed in the parking lot, but now my apartment is only a memory made of embers and ashes, courtesy of your “I think I can” attitude.
my apartment
