Get Out of My Way or I'm Gonna Shove!

These were some of the fastest tostadas I've ever made.  Some days everything is a race from morning until night.  Racing to work on my bike and then racing home.   I've become cognizant of my road manners due to the uptick in violent behavior between strangers over the smallest of things.  The last way I want to go out is some driver getting pissed at a careless maneuver of mine.  I've also tried to adapt alternative words to use as not to curse at drivers and pedestrians, when they do something stupid.  You never know who's ready to pop off these days and it only takes one smart mouthed comment. That goes both ways.  

I'm learning to say 'whoa bear' and 'hey bear' instead of 'Mo*(%, get the f%^ off the road you @#$*%'.  That's something I've picked up from countless bear encounter videos. It's automatic to curse when you're so jilted and revved up though.  It's a hard habit to break but one that may save my life.  A runner, glued to her cell phone was on the bike path heading straight towards me, looking down, of course, as I turned the curve without enough time to stop.  I screamed 'look the Fuck up!!!' as we barely missed a head on collision.  In one of those crucial seconds, I'll admit, I was willing to hit her.  I heard a delayed 'sorry'.  But in seconds I was heart-racing mad.  Since the pandemic, joggers are acting like we're still living in solitary land, all over the roads and it must stop!  

So then further along the path a driver backed up in my green light at full speed, right in the intersection.  I had to swerve so quickly that this prompted another fight or flight response.  YOU IDIOT! I shouted, and then very quickly realized it was not a family in an SUV like I hoped, but 3 young men in one of those Escalade Caddys.  The driver rolled down his tinted window and my eyes said oh shit because he was not happy.  You shouldn't curse at anyone is the point, but the lesson will be when you do it to the wrong person and I prayed this was not that day.  I peddled as if in slow motion, like in a dream. I feared I was gonna get the shit kicked out of me or worse.  I heard the vehicle speed up behind me.  They are actually chasing me now.  Just as I felt them right on my tail, I slid into the fire station and thank God the guys had the gates open and were out talking on the sidewalk.  I skidded to a stop just as the car swerved over like they were going to hit me.  The driver yelled, F*!k You, YOU DUMB B*(@H!  And that was that.  Another close call from the universe.  I didn't look to see the firemen's reaction, I tried not to consider what if, I just got off my bike and walked it a block until my heart stopped racing and then rode home ultra chill.