Perishable Skills

I’ve been mentally beating myself up over a confrontation yesterday, after being honked at and screamed at by a speeding motorist to “Stay in the bike lane” while going around another parked car in it.

Of course: the motorist thought he’d left me in his wake, but of course I caught up to him at the next red. I tried to convince myself just to “let it go,” but as I drew closer and the gasshat either needed gas or figured out he wasn’t going to get away with the harassment scot-free, he ironically drove in the bike lane about a block to bypass the traffic stacked up in the No. 2 lan and to dive into a gas station. Empty gas tank, empty head or both? Who knows.

When I arrived I ignored my better self and circled around his car to get a better look at the driver. He got out not liking that at all, and like a fear-aggressive dog feigned a charge, barking at me to “get the eff away from his car,” which I did while remaining on the bike, which put me at a disadvantage, but I didn’t want him to see it as a cue to escalate. Just because a dog is frightened doesn’t mean it won’t bite.

Anyway we fuck-you’d at each other for a few moments. He strangely made it a race thing but it all ended without anyone going to jail and me riding away upset for two reasons.

The first and least important is that I reaffirmed for the 1929467567888th time that I share the road with motherfuckers. Proud ones. Unrepentant ones. Who’ll harass and terrorize others with a total disregard and then make it your fault when you call bullshit. These people just suck on a molecular level as if it’s in their DNA.

The second and most important reason I was upset is that I so readily violated my golden road rule: THOUGH SHALL NOT ENGAGE.

I was most dramatically taught that back in 2009 with a similar incident. But no matter how much I make it my mantra it’s clearly a perishable skill, perhaps one that needed this egregious incident — the worst since I started riding again — to reboot/remind/reinforce. It shouldn’t have.

The rest of my ride home I was like Eeyore on a bike, slowly and ultra-glumly pedaling, terrifically bummed out at such a lapse.

And when I got there, I told Susan I could use a hug, which she lovingly provided and when she asked why, I said “Some days you slay the dragon, some days the dragon slays you and some days you slay yourself.”