ride on

There are some people who ride around on their bikes like total dicks. I never thought I was one of them. Most of all because I'm clumsy. I've fallen off my bike fixing my hat. I have absolutely no motivation to be a risk-taker. Yet, today i was the dick. Or the "bitch," as the kindly pedestrian shouted at me after I collided with him in an intersection, which I was crossing and he was standing in.

I felt terribly. I couldn't get around him amidst the construction, and as I'm realizing that he's making no effort to move I'm braking with all my might. By the time I reached him, I had stopped. But he reached out and grabbed my handlebars anyway and started yelling. I said, "Whoa, i'm sorry. I was trying to get around you. Why are you in the street?!" To which he boldly responds that I'm "the one on the fucking bike, bitch!" Fair point, but did he have to be so horrible about it?

I don't, by any means, think that because I'm on two wheels, everyone should yield to me. But I do kind of expect you to move out of the way when you're needlessly in the street and it's obvious that I can't get around you, nor stop in time. What I don't expect is that you'll grab my handlebars and then verbally assault me. The worst part is that he seemed totally normal--just your regular guy on his way to work. What kind of person is that angry before he even gets to the office? I guess the type that nearly got run over by a bike.

But is it just my imagination, or are people becoming increasingly less tolerant of others? It seems like we've all started assuming the worst of one another. Maybe he thought it somehow pleased me to fuck with him a little. It didn't. At all. In fact, as I walked my bike the rest of the way to the office, whimpering to myself, I wasn't sure what I felt worse about, that I'd almost hurt that guy or he thought I was just some entitled bitch. Either way, here's to being kinder--and more cautious.