illusionofjoy | This is weekend (Reply)

I found my adventures starting on Friday. It was actually the evening that the excitement began. The morning was typical - I got off from work and went to the library. I had a chance to chat with czerach, which is rare at this point.

After the chat, I found myself headed downtown for bagels. I truly love bagels, averring that they are the best foodstuff creation to come from the Semite population. Of course, in Pittsburgh, I can't seem to find a lox bagel anywhere; you all know the type: cream cheese and salmon. Whenever I visited Manhattan, I would have one of those for breakfast every morning with various types of orange juice (regular, orange-pineapple, orange-tangerine, etc.). Still, despite the lack of my favourite flavour, I find the selection at Breugger's to be quite satisfactory.

I left the bagel shop to find myself nearly run down by an inattentive driver as I crossed the street. The light was in my favour and I was in the crosswalk, but apparently the businesswoman in the compact car had so many important things to attend to, that she could not be bothered to pause for five seconds for the pedestrian who merely wished to cross the street; the pedestrian who, at that point, had the right to cross the street. I gave her my customary glare and single-finger salute.

I went home, and went to bed. When I awoke later in the evening, I set forth to hang out with a friend of mine. It was an incident that happened on the way to her house that made me think that, perhaps, Pittsburgh had it out for me that day.

Every area of the nation has it's own version of a redneck. In northern New York they were referred to as "grits." Apparently Pittsburgh's homegrown rednecks are called "yinzers."

It was at a crosswalk in Southside that I had a run-in with one of these societal undesirables. Again, I was exercising my right as a pedestrian to get from one side of the street to the other, when a red SUV comes barreling down the road. I jump out of the way, and scream, "hey, there's a crosswalk here" to the vehicle as I point to the demarcations on the asphalt. The vehicle then slows down, pulls over and stops. A grey-haired beer gut then opens the driver's-side door and steps out.

Apparently incensed about my objections to being nearly mowed down by his gas-guzzling liberty car, the mass of biomaterial who was formerly doing what could only be referred to as driving in the loosest sense of the word begins yelling at my friend and I. Among other things, I am accused of "jumping in front of" his car and "wanting to fuck" him.

At this point, I'm thinking three things: 1.) I don't need this shit right now; 2.) Shit, do I know how to pick them or what? And 3.) How do I get out of this shit? In regards to item #3, I decide that the best course of action would be to walk away and continue to my friend's house. This requires walking onto a couple of side streets that lack sidewalks.

Crazed-yinzer becomes even more angry, seeing that we're ignoring his temper-tantrum. He jumps back into his car and decides that attempted vehicular homicide would be a nice side-dish to add to his already heaping serving of road-rage. We move out of the path of danger and continue walking. He jumps out of his car again and resumes yelling towards us.

Strangely (yet thankfully) enough, he did not follow us all the way to my friend's house. He was also gone by the time I left the residence, around midnight. I admit, I was mildly concerned about going back outside as I had no idea whether or not the SUV-driving wife-beater would have the patience to stalk me for that long. As it turned out, he was gone, leaving me to wait for the bus in peace.

It is my hope that Mr. Road Rage has just dropped dead at this point, either from increased blood pressure, or an auto accident. On the bus, I was reflecting on how much I hate people when I hear some trouble coming from behind me. Someone was trying to start a fight with another passenger on the bus. "Fuck," I thought, "as if I need more shit to happen tonight." It was then that the bus driver pulled over and kicked the offender off. A collective sigh of relief was had by all the other riders.

Saturday I found myself off to Ceremony. Once more, I'd been cancelled on for having my hair done, though I did finally get it re-dyed yesterday morning (it's a purple-based black, which I really like, actually). I had expected to be leaving by midnight, however I met someone there who was willing to give me a ride home at 2:00AM.

The person in question seems like a very interesting girl who I'd like to hang out with again sometime. A point in her favour: she actually gave me her real number. Wow...a girl I just met giving me a ride home and her real number? Will wonders never cease...

What? You expected more details? Nope. Not telling. END TRANS