Tuesday, October 5, 2004

Commute Conversations

This morning I woke up and decided that I was to lazy to rollerblade to work, so my plan of attack would be to take the subway. In order to cut down on some of my crosstown travel time I decided to ride my skateboard to Union Square and hop the subway there as I often do.

"Aren't you a little old to be skateboarding to work?" Probably, but what do you care?

Near my apartment, running parallel to 14th Street, there is a narrow street that goes around my apartment complex. There are cars parked on both sides of the street and one lane in between with just enough room for a car to coast along. As I am skateboarding along the two Avenues worth of road before my turnoff, this guy come up behind me and start laying on the horn.

Normally I am fairly considerate of drivers along this strip, but since he was enough of a prick to be laying on the horn at 7:00am as opposed to a simple "excuse me" beep and since there was a red light up ahead and this guy was only going to have to stop at it and then be in my way if I let him pass, I ignored him. He lays on the horn again and yells something about getting out of the way. This time I give him the finger and turn around to give him a glare of warning. The glare sometimes does the trick. I think drivers usually hit the horn and think they are going to be scaring some 14 year old punk kid. When a 190 pound, 31 year old turns around a lot of tough beepers remain quiet. Probably more out of confusion then fear.

This guy didn't remain quiet. I finally let him pass so he doesn't have a heart attack. I shouldn't have bothered as there were two cars in front of him that were going to prevent him from going anywhere fast. As opposed to speeding by he slows down to yell about "staying the fuck out of the road." I tell him to go out to 14th Street if he wants to go fast. He calls me an asshole. I briefly think about kicking up my board and giving his Honda Accord windshield and his Honda Accord-driving head a taste of 44 inches of wood, grip tape, metal and wheels. Instead I give him the timeless, "Fuck off (dramatic pause) bitch!" The "bitch" gets 'em every time.

I get back in front of him for another quarter of a block and then cut off on my cross street of choice.

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