write.as/jonbeckett

Cycling to and from work through commuter traffic over the years seemed to have blunted my perception of “what might be considered idiotic, or dangerous”or so I thought. I see so many thoughtless actions, idiotic decisions, and general stupidity on the road that I thought I had pretty much become immune to it. I normally shake my head, and continue on down the road.

The most predictable idiots are almost always the trophy moms on the school run, late dropping Tabatha off at the school they purposely moved into catchment for, in order to fit in with their Skiing friends. They look straight at you while waiting to pull out in their executive monster trucks, and then pull out directly into your pathbecause you're only a bicycle, and they are a seven ton behemoth. One of them did it to me yesterday morning, and another this morning. This morning was quite entertaining, because she realised what she had done as I slid to a halt in the gutter and stopped her carin the middle of the roadto let me continue. I stood, straddling the bike, with my hands out while she blocked the entire road in both directions.

I'm sorry, but if you can't see a 6'4 guy coming down the road wearing a luminous coat, he's going to make an example of you when you do something stupid to him, like forcing him off the road.

Anyway. This post wasn't supposed to be about that encounter.

Late last night I went to the supermarket to buy emergency cocoa following the not hilarious accident my other half had in the kitchen. After leaving the supermarket, I approached the roundabout in the center of townthat had a queue of cars trailing away from it towards the next junctionand was about to turn right. Only I didn't because a small car came barrelling up the high street with no thought or regard for anybody but himself, and parked himself across the roundaboutbecause of course he couldn't leave it.

Here's the funny thing. I had headphones inI was listening to a podcast. I stopped my bike, stood either side of it, and crossed my armsstaring disbelievingly at the driver, who was now not daring look anywhere but straight ahead, because he knew damn well what he had done. I then shouted something at him. I never shout at people in the street.“You f*cking knob!“It was only in the moments afterwards that I realised I had shouted it out loudnormally the tirades happen entirely within my own head. As I cycled the remainder of the journey home, I started grinning, and thanking my lucky stars that it had been late at night, with nobody around.

Note to selfwhen listening to podcasts, don't shout things at people in your head, because it might actually come out of your mouth.