Today is apparently Idiot On Bicycles Day.

I never used to hate people that rode bikes. I really have nothing against bikes, except for that one time when I was about 5 and I got into a fight with the kickstand on my own bike, and the kickstand won. I still have the scar.

But anyway. I get that people like to ride their bikes, and sometimes they don't have cars and the bike is all they have to get around.

BUT, that being said, that does NOT give people that ride their bikes in the road the right to be completely idiotic and expect that those of us in cars won't run them over when the opportunity strikes. Being on a bike does NOT make you exempt from the rules of the road when you're riding in the street including, but not limited to, riding the CORRECT way down a one-way street, NOT using the turn lane in the middle of the street as your own personal bike lane, and also, actually STOPPING at red lights/stop signs.

I didn't think that was complicated, but then again...I really need to stop being surprised by the sheer collective stupidity.

Today my brother and I were pretty darned close to running over some stupid teenager that decided the middle of the road was a perfectly good spot to ride his bike. He started off on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road, then he was IN the other lane, riding directly toward a whole line of cars coming straight toward him, and then he veered over into the middle turn lane, pedaling as fast as his dumb little legs would go. He kept weaving closer and closer to our lane and I had a sudden vision of him pulling to the right and streaking into our lane, falling, and our car running him over because we would NEVER have had enough time to stop--that's how close he was. I don't care if you're a teenager and you feel like you're the coolest, bad-ass-iest person that ever lived, if you're gonna ride your damn bike in the damn street, you better use your damn brain.

My brother honked the horn at the idiot kid in the street after we both thought he was going to ride right in front of us, and without breaking stride he turned around and started yelling at us. Our windows were rolled up, and neither of us have any idea what he said aside from the very clearly mouthed "f--- you!".

Hey kid, if you end up as a pancake or smooshed into someone's grill, I can't say I'll feel bad. One less moron I have to put up in this stupid city.

I also have this fear that one of these days I'm going to back out of our driveway and back over another idiot on a bike that's riding in the street, going the wrong way down our ONE-WAY STREET. I realize you're on a bike, but if you're in the street, you have to follow the same rules a car does. It's very hard to see people coming the wrong way down our street because, going the proper direction, there's about half a block of level street and then it slopes down, and because I'm not Superman, I have no x-ray vision to see through the street to tell if there's anybody there. Given how often it happens, it's really just a matter of time until we run them over. Not on purpose, of course, but I still won't be losing any sleep over it.

There was also the day that I came THIS close to hitting yet another idiot on a bike. I was on my way to work, you know, the usual, driving the correct way down our street. I started to slow down for a red light, and a teenager on a bike came careening around the corner, making a wide turn off the sidewalk directly into my lane, headed, you guessed it, the wrong damn way down the street. I stomped on the brakes and honked my horn at him, and he gave me the finger, shouted something that I can only assume wasn't very polite, and took off down the street.

I guess that's what I get for obeying the laws of traffic.

It's days like today that I'm grateful winter is coming because snow means less morons on two wheels.

Sincerely,

Smart Girl.

The day the neighbors set their house on fire

I didn't always live in this town. I'm from a very, very small town about two hours north of here, and when I say "small town", I mean we had a population of MAYBE 200, and that's if you included all the stray cats and maybe the family of turkeys that lived in the swamp adjacent to our yard for several summers. I grew up on a dirt road, across the street from a cemetery, and the most exciting thing that ever happened was when the neighbor's dogs would break out of their pen and poop in our yard. No joke.

When I moved here a year ago, it was a bit of a culture shock. This town...it's something else, and that's not always a good thing. My hometown had its fair share of morons, certainly, but around here that number is probably closer to 95% of the population. I cannot go even a single day without someone, somewhere, doing something incredibly stupid. Even if I don't leave the house, someone walking down the street will be doing something that makes me wonder if they left the house without their common sense. 

Like the day the neighbors set their house on fire.

It started out like any other normal Sunday. The housemates were at church, I had showered and was puttering around the kitchen waiting for the water to boil for my ramen noodles (breakfast of champions, eh?). The window above the sink offers a view of part of our street, and as I stood there washing the dishes I happened to look up and I saw a fire truck sitting in the street. I didn't hear any sirens, but I tend to listen to music very loudly when I do the dishes, so that was no surprise.

Being the curious individual that I am, I of course went to go stare out the front window to see what was going on. By the time I got to the front of the house there was a total of three firetrucks and one ambulance sitting in the street. The house across the street and to the right of ours had a cloud of dark smoke billowing out one of the back windows, and the occupants of the house were standing in their driveway, staring at the firemen as they rushed inside carrying the big giant hose. 

It must not have been a very large fire, because the majority of firemen that had arrived were standing in the street, blocking traffic, hands on their hips and trying to look super important. The fire chief (according to the name on the back of his jacket, at least) was right in the middle of things, pointing furiously at nothing in particular and looking a bit like a maestro in a large yellow coat. 

It didn't take long for the fire to be put out, maybe 20 minutes or so total before the firemen starting coiling up the hose and taking off, one truck at a time. Nobody was injured, because the ambulance left without ever treating anyone. 

Now, I can't assume what happened. I never heard any details, and I will never know for sure what went on across the street that morning. However, considering that just the night before the police had been called to that same exact house on a domestic disturbance call and nearly arrested one of the guys that either lived in the house or was at least dating someone else that lived there, I can't help but wonder if maybe the fire wasn't entirely an accident. I don't see the point in setting a fire, on purpose, in a house you're renting and don't even own, but I'm not an idiot either. It seems awfully suspicious though, but I suppose I will have to go through life without ever knowing what really went on at the house across the street that morning.

The house has been empty since the fire. Since the people that lived there had about 306 kids that all spent a lot of time outside, screaming for absolutely no reason, it's been very quiet since they moved out.

I don't really miss the neighbors much at all.

Sincerely,

Smart Girl.

Parking. It's not for everyone.

I will never, ever, not in a million years, understand how some people in this country ever get their driver's license. I admit to knocking over a few cones when I (very, very badly) attempted the parallel parking section on my driving test, but I at least have some common sense. I also have the ability to read. My mommy done learned me good.

The people of this town, though... I hated driving before I moved here. Driving is something I did to get to work, not something I did just for the fun of it. Driving makes me very angry, not to the point of ramming into people with my car, but definitely angry enough to scream obscenities at the imbeciles I'm forced to share the asphalt with, even if they can't hear me. STOP SIGNS ARE FOR STOPPING, YOU IDIOT! Oh, hey, no, you don't need to use your blinker because LET ME READ YOUR DAMN MIND!!

You get the idea.

Imagine my surprise when I moved here and discovered that not only can people suck at driving, but they can also suck at parking. I always thought it would be difficult to be terrible at something that involves your vehicle not moving at all. Who knew?

I used to think signs that proclaim, in plain bold English, NO PARKING AT ANY TIME were fairly easy to understand. I mean, you really only need two words, NO and PARKING. Even backwards they still make sense if you add a little punctuation: Parking? NO! Around here those signs are like an unspoken challenge. There's a no-parking sign just down the block from my house that's been spray-painted in a pathetic attempt to make it unreadable, which of course didn't work, because not only can people not figure out how to stop their cars intelligently (not operate the car, just stop the damn thing from moving), they can't even work a can of spray paint. Big surprise, no?

The house across the street (yes, the same one where Pregnant Man lives) has one of those new-fangled "No Parking" signs directly in front of the house. Not out of the ordinary when you realize that entire side of the street doesn't allow parking. And yet, at least two or three times per day (or five or six times a day sometimes) there's a car parked in front of the house, in front of the damned no-parking sign. *sigh*

The list of Pregnant Man's superpowers got a little shorter when he lost the power of reading comprehension.

If this is my last post, it's because I've died ramming my car into the horde of idiots.

Sincerely,

Smart Girl.