Well, as another Monday rolls to an end, I'm sitting her pondering all the happenings of a day that was slightly less than mundane.
I woke up late...well, I really just didn't want to get out of bed and kept falling back to sleep. At 8am I was finally of enough coherence to make a rational decision and figure I'd better get my feet on the floor and get moving. I got up and went through the normal morning routine (shower, feed Cissy, take the dogs out, feed the dogs, and pack my lunch....wait a minute! Yep, forgot to put the coffee on. Crap! At this point I couldn't wait because I was already going to be late. I gave in and decided I would just drink the crappy coffee at work, packed my bag, threw on my helmet, and out he door I went.
It was slightly brisk this morning. Not too bad, but enough that I was glad I put a hat on under my helmet and put a pair of gloves on. I took my normal route to work (which is only a mile I'll add) and usually there isn't much traffic to deal with. Same this morning other than the last 100 feet. I was coming down the hill that rolls up to the side entrance of our parking lot doing...I'd say 25mph or so and I saw an oncoming truck. There are some parked cars on either side, but only a few and still plenty of room for a bike going south and a truck going north. I wasn't really concerned about it. The truck then started slowing down which I thought unnecessary since there was plenty of room, but hey, if they want to be extra cautious that's fine by me! Then all of a sudden, they start to turn left in front of me!! There was only about 20 feet between me and the truck at this point and at 25 mph that wasn't a lot of room. I clamped down on both brakes, felt the back wheel lock-up and kick out a little, but I managed to steer around the front of the truck as they stopped mid-turn. I came to a stop, past the truck, and perpendicular to the road...PISSED! Sometimes I have a mouth like a sailor and when some moron in a truck nearly runs me over, that side of me comes out. This was by far the closest call I've ever had and it scared the ever livin' out of me. The guy at least acknowledged me, apologized and said he didn't see me, but then told me to calm down. Calm down!? Calm down you say!? You damn near killed me buddy!
I was already late to work, so I let it go and rode the remaining 20 seconds to work.
It's times like this that makes me really think about how some people drive. It was 8:45am, plenty of light, I had a red jacket on, a white helmet, riding a bright orange bike, and practically in the middle of the road. How in God's name can you not see me! And then you have the nerve to completely not understand how absolutely catastrophic it could have been to my life! Yea, if I were in a car, and you did that, I would have been mad, but probably not all that hurt, but on a bike... Really buddy!? I hope you spent all day today in torment thinking about how you almost seriously injured someone, but I doubt you gave it a second thought and just shrugged me off as some crazy cyclist.
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