So, I'm walking to work this morning...

...freezing various body parts off...

...and I am handed a valuable lesson:

Politeness + Paranoia = The Force (tm)

After my (more-or-less) daily mile walk, I was almost to the office - I just had one small street and an open plaza to cross to get into the building and I was, frankly, not wasting time - it was bloody COLD out!.

Now, the street that I had to cross, was one half of a fork - traffic comes in from about 2 o'clock and splits so that two lanes of traffic swing to my right and behind me, and two lanes cross straight in front of me (I'm actually at one corner of a large, triangular island and the other two corners, towards which the oncoming traffic is heading, BOTH have stop lights. Occasionally (*a-HENH* Ah say - OCCASIONALLY!) drivers will see that they have a green light ahead of them and will gun it from further back than is reasonable, in order to make the light while it's not TOO red, if y'know what I mean.

(Of course, from MY point of view, it's like I'm playing a neverending game of "chicken" with a succession of cars, all of whom are pointing straight at me until they swing left or right...)

So, I'm at the corner, and bearing down on me is a BIG commercial delivery truck - like, the last step before a semi- big - what's that... a 24-foot box...? Anyway, he's coming down and I'm not sure which way he's going, so I'm standing and waiting and freezing in place. It turns out that he's going to cross in front of me, but he comes up to the crosswalk and he stops (Thanks, W.B. Mason - you have nice drivers!)

Now, both of my readers know that I'm compulsive about cosswalks - my daughter calls me a Crosswalk Nazi.

Nolo Contendere.

BUT... while I will get cranky and bounce pennies and such off of cars that ignore crosswalks, if someone is courteous and stops I will, as often as not, tip my hat and wave them through - Hey... you be polite and I'll be polite. (Let's hear a rousing chorus of "After you, my dear Gaston!")

So, this big-ass truck has stopped in the lane right in front of me at the crosswalk and, while I *AM* bloody cold, I flip my mental coin and the good face comes up, and I decide to wave him through. (There's the politeness part of the equation.) Along with that: we *ARE* both stopped, and - you know how, sometimes when BOTH of you are waiting for the other guy to do something, then BOTH of you decide that the other guy ISN'T going to do anything so you BOTH start to do that thing that you were going to do at the same time and either bump into each other or do the start-and-stop thing a couple of times before you figure it out? (Good heavens! I think I'm channelling Roseanne Rosannadanna!)

Anyway - I decide that this guy is just WAY too big to play that sort of game with, so I decide to play it safe and (again) wave him to go ahead. (...and there's the paranoia...!)

He nods and waves back, and he's just BARELY started moving into the crosswalk...

When the FRICKIN JACKASS who never so much a slowed down goes whizzing past him in the right lane, straight throught the crosswalk and, coincidentally, through where I would have been if I hadn't waved the other guy to go first!!!!

(Cue Sir Alec Guinness: "Trust your FEELINGS, Luke...!")

Frickin' moron...

(The driver, not Sir Alec...!)

So that pretty much made my day - there's something about being two steps away and hearing that metaphorical bullet go ka-PWEEENGing past really clarifies the mind tremendously.

Of course, eventually I get into the office and, about an hour or so later - when the adrenalin rush has worn off - a project that hasn't been taken care of, because it requires input from about twenty-seven people, and which no one can figure out how to do, and which is now OFFICIALLY about fifteen seconds into the last minute - gets dropped on my desk...

(Bill Cosby - as Noah, talking to God - ..."You let me bring in a PREGNANT ELEPHANT... Did you TELL ME that the elephant was pregnant...? No! You gave me NO manual for delivery; you DIDN'T tell me that the elephant was pregnant; no NOTHIN'! Here's good ol' Noah standing UNDERNEATH the elaphant...*BWOOOAAAARRRPP*!!!")

And as everyone flusters out of my office... I look at this pregnant elephant... and I say to myself: "Man... I could have been laying around a nice warm emergency room with nurses and all sorts of good drugs... But, NO-O-O-O-O...! I had to use the Ffrickin' FORCE!!"

So how was YOUR day...?
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Almost Closing Thought for Today:

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -- George Bernard Shaw
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Actual Closing Thought for Today:

"Ya HEAR that, you DIPSTICK?!!?" -- Me