I just got back from treating myself to some spring rolls, which were delicious, but not quite as perfect as Mimi makes them at Saigon 39. I scarfed them down, then moved on to dessert, the aforementioned fortune cookie, which admonished as follows:
Flash back three hours. I decided to take the #16 bus downtown to pick up some reading material at Barnes & Noble. Feeling pretty cocky, having done this twice now, I grabbed my backpack and bus pass and strode to the corner, where I obediently waited for the light to change (although people around here would rather jaywalk than not).
I stepped out into Washington Avenue, then glanced to my left, where a Honda Civic doing about 40 was bearing down on the crosswalk (driver on phone, btw). I jumped backwards onto the curb just as the idiot driver figured out that the light was red and he probably should slam on his brakes. Which he did, coming to rest inside the crosswalk, where I would have been had I not jumped backwards.
Wigands are prone to exaggeration, but if anything I am minimizing what a close call this was. If only I'd seen that fortune cookie earlier, I may have glanced to my left and paused before the car almost (seriously, it almost did) hit/killed me.
Thankfully there were several other drivers and pedestrians around who scowled at and judged the phone-talking maniac. I should have gotten their names and numbers in case you think I'm lying. I'm not.
How ironic and prophetic that this hypothetical thought appeared in my June 20 blog post:
"Have you ever considered the amount of trust we all extend in the course of a day?
We trust the cars to stop for the red light. We trust our computers to boot up. I trust you to read this without judging or mocking. You trust me not to waste your blog-reading time...yada yada yada."
The point is this: Please spend a little extra looking both ways, everybody.
In between almost meeting my maker and reading the unhelpful fortune cookie, I had a pretty good time downtown, visiting old haunts and looking around.
This graffiti on a streetlight base really got to me in the wake of my close call:
I guess we've all had this kind of near-miss incident. It makes you think:
a) you're one lucky son of a gun and
b) you should maybe get busy doing all the things you think you should do before you, um, you-know-what.
Gotta go call my kids. Bye for now!
2 comments:
That happened to me in downtown KC once with a metro bus! I survived, but I never forgot it, and always looks both ways now...
WOW!! Molly.... you scared the crap out of me! I am SO GLAD that you are ok! Thank God!
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