I nearly hit a man in a crosswalk today.I was sitting at a red light, having missed the previous green, a large SUV was to my left, blocking any view that I had in that direction. When the light turned green, I lifted from the clutch, pressed the accelerator and then slammed on the brakes. A blur of white crossed in front of me, running into my view from the far side of the SUV: white boy, white shoes with no laces, white wife beater tee, white cap cocked sideways, white capri pants (yes, capri pants) too large and being held up by one hand. After I worried that I'd actually hit this fine young gentleman, I wondered how he moved so fast while having to hold his pants up. He was trying to run through the intersection against the light. With a great athletic leap, he jumped up and away, his hands landing on my hood--probably not the 'hood that he'd intended on visiting.
He yelled. I pointed at the green street light. He yelled some more and ran on across the street and up the sidewalk. There were people and cars everywhere... was he embarrassed? Was his yelling about saving face after his head had deserted him in front of so many watching eyes?
The near incident stirred me, so much that I crept out into the intersection and looked both ways even though I had a green light. I was headed to the library, but my internal GPS rebooted and I drove straight home out of habit. Oops. When I arrived, it dawned on me...
I wasn't so worried about his bruised ego, I was more worried that I might have knocked a few IQ points out of him, since it was obvious that he didn't have many to spare.
There goes a "special person."
