Friday, March 10, 2006

At the risk of sounding morbid, I think I know how I'm going to die.

When I go to work each day, I drive to a local shopping center, park in the lot designated for commuters, and walk the short distance to the subway (we call it the Metro here) for the trip to the office. It's a nice walk (unless it's raining or snowing), but there's a particularly dangerous six-lane intersection I have to cross. It's not so bad in the morning, but when I return in the afternoon, I have to cross four lanes of traffic to get to the median...and there's the problem. Two of those lanes turn right, and are governed by a turning arrow; when the lights are red, the rightmost lane can make a turn after a full stop. Yes, I bolded and italicized that, because although the law requires a full stop before the turn, drivers almost invariably come rocketing up to the light, glance briefly to the left, and then hurtle through the light without even looking to see if a pedestrian is present. Oh, and nine times out of ten those drivers are chattering happily into their cell phones.

So that's how I think I'll finally shuffle off my mortal coil - no matter how careful I try to be, I'll be run down as I cross the the intersection of Frontier Drive and Spring Mall Road by an idiot who isn't paying attention to his (or her) driving...and who just can't wait to have that critical telephone conversation.

I hope I'm wrong, but it looks like a good bet to me. Have a great weekend...if I manage to successfully navigate the dreaded intersection again today, I'll post another random comment tomorrow.

Bilbo

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