hit and run

I am an indignant pedestrian. It's in my blood, really. The first time I was almost killed in New York city was when my aunt thumped on the hood of a cab that had nearly mowed us down. Even a cabbie--up for three days straight, though he hadn't seen the inside of a bathroom since last Tuesday, hopped up on caffeine and uppers--was no match for my aunt, a fierce knitter and pre-school teacher. She left him quivering with fear. (At least in my memory.)

With that ancestral history in mind, imagine me making my way to the Davis square T stop yesterday. I come to a notoriously bad intersection, as far as any pedestrian who hopes to see tomorrow is concerned. A side street empties out to a major road at exactly the spot where humans--unarmed with seat belts or airbags or fenders or usually even a horn--are expected to make their way across the major road. Motorists on the side street are trying to cut into traffic, never paying much mind to us bipeds.

So I step off the curb, waiting to make eye contact with a driver on the side street, who is clearly hoping to merge into traffic. Only she's looking over her shoulder, away from me. So I wait. She inches out, towards my toes. I wait. She inches. At a break in traffic, she starts rolling into the intersection, turning her head for the first time to see me. I'm prepared with my best stink eye, a wilting look that I reserve for idiot drivers. Think mean nun, disapproving mother, and cranky police officer before his morning coffee.

Then I realize that it's a friend! With a fuzzy Snoopy steering-wheel cover! And I've given her my stink eye! Though she's kind, points out that she did in fact see me, and pretends to not have noticed my glare. Oh, dear. I wear my tail between my legs for the rest of the day.