Getting to the bar Wednesday night became an adventure in creating my own reality. Making a wrong turn while driving in my own neighborhood should have been the first sign of creating a new reality. By the way, my reality is always funny, seriously “I cannot believe I just witnessed that” funny.
This wrong turn brings me to a small local shopping district that is on the cusp of rebirth. The business district is filled with Mom & Pop stores that were previously flooded out a couple of years ago. This quarter mile strip of local economy includes laundry-mat, hardware store, Italian restaurants, Mexican restaurants, couple of dive bars, one yoga studio and a county nicknack store (all things wood, all thing useless), hair salon named “cut and stuff” with and engraved wood plaque hanging at the store front presumably bought at the county nicknack store.
I sit at a stop sign at the end of this strip and giggle that I have just accidentally happened upon Mayberry RFD in this small town in Pittsburgh PA. The company my sister works for is based out of Mayberry RFD, it actually survived without the need of Andy Griffith. If Mayberry RFD and Andy Griffith mean nothing to you, keep it to yourself, whippersnapper.
Everything that happens next happens within a 45 second time frame.
Sitting at the stop sign directly to my right an old man pulls his two-ton truck right out in front of me nearly sideswiping my car. Old man drives away giving me the finger. I was hopping that he was flashing me the peace sign but he wasn’t. I sit at the stop sign. Approximately 15 seconds into this story, I’m still sitting at the stop sign, barely avoiding an accident and succumbing to full fledged anger that an old man flipping you off can cause.
Next, before proceeding forward I noticed to my left a pedestrian at the cross walk. Being the active citizen that I am I politely wave my hand out the window to let the pedestrian know that it’s ok to walk across the street. At this point, mind you, I’m still at the stop sign and still not moving. The pedestrian starts yelling at me to stop holding up traffic, he actually used an expletive. It hurt more than the middle finger. Looking in my rearview mirror there is nobody behind me. I press my foot to the accelerator.
I move about two car lengths forward to be stopped by an old lady riding a ten-speed bike, while talking on her cell phone steering her self blindly into the front of my car.
What makes this story even better, and the proof that I really do create my own reality, is the description of what the lady on the bike looks likes.
Sixty years old, at least, maybe 100 lbs, completely skin and bones, with the skin of a lady who probably started smoking while still in the womb. She is wearing teeny-tiny shorts with an oversized tank top with no bra and she was cold (EEEWWWW). Large style Jackie-O sunglasses, bright green frames and dusty gray lenses perched on her lower nose. Upon her head sat a thick blonde wig presumably taken from the dumpsters out back of Woolworth’s retail store back in 1978.
She hits my car but does not fall off the bike. She wobbles left, right, left again, regains her balance (quite impressively) then goes around my car. At no time did she stop having a cell phone conversation nor did she ever look up at me.
I love my reality…believe me…
