Paybacks A Bitch

I drive a truck. A very large truck. With a loud horn.

While sitting at a very long stop light in downtown early this evening, I witnessed an act of pure meanness. Almost instantly, and certainly without real thought, I found myself serving up paybacks – Cold. Perhaps I was a bit too harsh. Perhaps not. Here’s what went down:

A lone girl was walking down the sidewalk approaching the intersection where I had just stopped for a light. Coming up behind her were two girls on those annoying vintage bicycles. I guess they're cute, but really, don't we have better bicycle technology these days? The girl was walking on the edge of the sidewalk anyway, and these are unusually wide sidewalks for a downtown area. So the following behavior was entirely unwarranted. One of the girls on the bike rode right up behind the pedestrian, yelled something at her and swerved around her. The poor girl on foot hunched her shoulders and put her hands up to her face, like she thought she was about to get run over. The mean girls laughed and laughed and slowly pedaled off towards the crosswalk . . . . In my direction.

The bully was still laughing and looking back over her shoulder at the frightened girl behind her as she rode right in front of my grill. BLLLAAAAWWWWHHHHH. My hand is on the horn. BBLLLAAAAAHHHHH. Still on the horn. She swerves, looses her seat. I think she is going to go down. Oh dear, I think, I didn't want to kill her, just scare the evil spirits out of her. She managed to stay on the bike and, happily, did not manage to compose herself enough to swear at me or even give me a dirty look. She was happy just to stay on the bike and get the heck out of the street.

Meanwhile, pedestrian girl is also walking through the crosswalk after witnessing the above act. I'm sitting there in my giant truck, in my baseball cap and big sunglasses, and I just gave her one of those 'cool dude nods' as she, all smiles now, walked on by.

I don’t ride trotting horses. I ride gaiting horses. There is no bounce. No trot to post to. Just a smooth, glide ride that I have enjoyed for the past many years. But I may have crossed over to the dark side. I have purchased a two year old Warlander. A Warlander is a new, made up breed created by crossing a Friesian and an Andalusian. (Two fabulous breeds in their own right.) Her name is Duende. She trots. I will learn to ride the trot.

My first attempt at posting this year was at the expense of my friend’s 3 yo quarter horse gelding. The horse’s owner, my friend KS, keeps insisting that I’ll pick up posting “in less than 2 seconds”. As if it were like learning to breathe! HA! You should have seen that attempt. It lasted less than 4 strides because a) I couldn’t keep the horse moving forward and b) I was falling forward while my legs were falling backwards (this is clearly not very ‘classical’). I like to think I’m not afraid to try new things. I was kind of wrong that day. But mostly, I was just highly annoyed. It wasn’t fun. It was awful. And so the journey begins. [tinkley Asian-like music plays in the background]