It was a surreal morning coming into work this morning. I feel like I've wandered into some kind of dystopian view of reality and am desparately looking for the pause or stop button on this wacky movie of life.
It started with the infrequent patrol of the HOV lane, which always results in wackiness. You can always tell the violators because as soon as they see the flashing lights up ahead, they try to get over into the non-HOV lanes. Never mind that there are cars there. I always find myself thinking, "If you can't pay the fine, don't do the crime."
Later in my commute, I was reminded of an old friend from college who, when she was get annoyed with you, would say, "Has anyone flipped you off today?" My answer this morning would be, "Yes, yes I have." Apparently a burgundy Pontiac decided at the last second they needed to merge to get onto 440. Which is fine, if the driver had bothered to check his or her mirrors and/or the blind spot. Alas, this idea didn't occur to them until I was honking at them because I was in the same spot in time and space they wanted to occupy. And with a car near enough next to me in the other lane, I had no where to go. So, I honked my horn and was politely shot the one-finger salute.
Joy....
But that's not even the most surreal and strange thing I witnessed this morning. Walking up the hill to my office, I encountered two guys at the crosswalk. First guy has a blackberry and is engrossed in it. For sake of ease, I will refer to him as Green Shirt. Other guy is wearing a red shirt so we'll call him Red Shirt. Green shirt starts across crosswalk with the "Don't Walk" sign lit and is nearly mowed down by a car turning left. My second sighting of the bird today occurs as driver flips off Green Shirt. Car moves on, Green Shirt crosses and Red Shirt begins to cross and this conversation occurs.
Red Shirt: Jeez Louise, dude (he didn't actually say Jeez Louise, but this is a PG blog). Get off your freakin' blackberry for a second.
Green Shirt: I'm sorry. Is something wrong?
Red Shirt: You need to get off your blackberry and pay attention to the world for a change, jerk.
Green Shirt: Why are you so mad at me?
Red Shirt: Because you almost freakin' got run over, using your blackberry!
At this point, they were both walking along, blocking the sidewalk. I fell back a bit, worried I'd see a fist fight erupt and wanting to give them some space. I thought of speeding up to pass them, but based on how Red Shirt reacted to a guy using a blackberry, I can only imagine what he'd say if someone had the audacity to walk faster than he did.
Yep, a pretty surreal kind of morning, making me wonder if I somehow missed the exit for Nashville and ended up in New York City instead....
posted by Michael Hickerson at 7/24/2008 11:45:00 AM |
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