This Is This

“You cock! You fucking knobend! What the fuck are you doing? Watch the fucking door, you cunt!”

Word for word, I swear to god that those are the first words I heard that morning, not including the family and fellow commuters. The cyclist pulled up to the door of the bus among the commuters caught bracing in a squall of expletives.

This was made worse because before leaving the house I had accidentally swallowed half a cap of Listerine. What gets rid of the taste of mouthwash? Nothing, that’s what. There’s nowhere to go from there. You can’t go back and you can’t go forward. It’s just a big minty paradox.

He was cycling on the pavement by a crowded bus stop when the doors opened. A driver will tend to do that to pick up passengers.

A few passengers to the cyclist: “You should be on the road.”

The bus driver said nothing. I kept quiet, too, because even though I’ll take a challenge, there’s no point in arguing with someone when they’re furious. They won’t see sense and you’re likely to make them madder than a cut snake.

Reasoning with rage is like writing words on little bits of paper and throwing them into a fire.

I get annoyed by cyclists on the pavement because they are vehicles. Cyclists go on about their rights to use the road, but many of them don’t. I am excluding parents with kids here, because it’s a safe and responsible way to get around.
Same goes for cyclists using the pavement to avoid going around a three lane roundabout the wrong way in order to get to the street around the corner.

But rush-hour cyclists should be on the road, especially when I leave the house. If the world could just work that way, that’d be great. Thanks.

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I clicked my beer bottle against his wine glass and look at him. He paused and looked a little embarrassed before he said: “Good.”
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 6:30 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or you can skip to the end and leave a comment yourself.