Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom (And Whimsy)

Posted on September 11, 2024 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with 2 comments

Crosswalk or angry walk?

 

“Walk a mile in my shoes,

Just walk a mile in my shoes.”

Walk a Mile in my Shoes – Elvis Presley

It’s Saturday as I write this piece.

Warning.

A rainy day rant ensues.

It is a dark, dull rainy day and most of us are elated. After a hot, dry summer, we desperately need precipitation.  The brook that runs adjacent to my apartment is a mere trickle. Wells are running dry in the county and a water conservation order has been in effect for weeks. If today was your wedding day or you were organizing an outdoor event, you might not be as upbeat as I am. The summer was near perfect, but we are now paying the price.

What is one to do on such a gloomy day? Why, this is simple. Ignore the gloom. Embrace the gloom.

After reading Jane Austen’s classic, Pride and Prejudice recently, I decided to go “full on Jane” and I will spend a good chunk of the day reading her other major work, Sense and Sensibility. I also plan to make a coconut cream pie and go for a walk. If I eat too much pie, I will go for a second walk! Sense and sensibility.

So, what’s on my mind?

I’ll get the rant out of the way early. I write about this all the time but being a cranky, old curmudgeon, there is nothing stopping me from repeating myself. One of the joys of aging is that you can bitch and whine incessantly and none of your contemporaries will even notice. They are either doing the same thing or they have forgotten who you are.

I don’t own a car anymore. Don’t need one. Don’t want one. I live in town, and I can walk to all the places I need to in minutes. This includes, the library, the grocery store, the hospital, the Farmer’s Market and the liquor store. Sobey’s and the NSLC are “side by each” and an efficient walk can yield me asparagus and red wine.

On my daily 90-minute walk, I go through a dozen or more crosswalks. Some days, it feels like taking a casual stroll along the 401 in Toronto. Kenny Loggins had it right when he penned the words “Highway to the danger zone; Ride into the danger zone.” I am super cautious and vigilant when entering a crosswalk because many drivers are simply not paying attention. They are dreaming about their double double at Timmies or lamenting another playoff loss by the Leafs. Most likely, they’re checking their Messenger messages.

The other day, not far from home, I started walking across the crosswalk. A car that had been stopped at the stop sign, pulled out as I was a third of the way across the road. The driver of the car looked me straight in the eyes and continued along his merry way forcing me to stop abruptly. I didn’t give him the finger but threw up my arms as if to say “WTF”. Other drivers choosing to respect the laws of the land joined me in the gesture. If I had been distracted, say, by looking at my cell phone with me head down, a family member would be working on my obituary.

Maybe they need to change the name of crosswalk to angry walk!

What? People actually look at their cell phones while walking?

After nearly getting run down by a car, I nearly suffered a similar fate with a pedestrian moments later. The following description will certainly get me in trouble in some quarters but I’m 73 and I don’t give a damn. A tall, blond, beautiful young woman (a university student recognizable with het X t-shirt) was approaching me in the opposite direction. She was wearing earbuds and was frantically typing on her phone. Her body was on the sidewalk, but her mind was elsewhere. We were on a collision course. Now getting run over by a car is one thing but getting run over by a human, and a beautiful one at that, is another thing altogether. I have been threatening to do this for years. I planned to stand my ground and see what would happen. I mean, I have lived a long and happy life, and I wouldn’t object at all having my obituary state the cause of my death! As a matter of fact, I could have great fun writing that obituary myself. It would start off with something like this: BREAKING NEWS. Old Man Bowled Over by Beautiful Blond.

“And how can man die better than facing fearful odds”! Thanks, Horatius.

At the very last moment, I chickened out. Gallantry is a theme in Jane Austen’s book, and I did the honorable thing and stepped aside. The young lady, to this very day, never knew I existed. For the second time in a matter of minutes, I was muttering WTF. But old people mutter a lot. Nobody noticed.

Originally, I had planned to write a piece about Tupperware lids and missing socks, but I simply had to get this rant out of my system.

Is there a rational explanation of where Tupperware lids go? And can someone explain how a person puts laundry in the washer and dryer and somehow socks end up lost and mismatched? Maybe the missing socks turn into lost Tupperware lids or vice versa.

Time to finish the pie and go for my walk.

Pie. Walk. Pie. Walk. The perfect antidote for a rainy Saturday.

I will keep my head up.

Have a great weekend.