I’ve fairly had it. And I’m not even being grumpy. Well…maybe a tad, but I swear it’s a righteous grumpy and not at all recreational! But this is basically where I’m at right now:

Driving and pedestrianing cannot be as hard as these Stupid Americans make it look.

Sometimes they do such mind-bogglingly stupid things that I have to really think about what it is they could possibly be trying to accomplish.

Couldn’t hurt. If I bang long and hard enough (shut up, Diezel) perhaps the logic will come to me.

Honestly, I’m not completely sure where to begin.

Pedestrians?

Long time readers will likely remember that I’m a diagonal street crosser, which I’d like to stress should not be confused with being an idiot. However, some of the shenanigans I see while people are attempting to accomplish something as simple as crossing a street make me think that the perfect adjective for them is exactly that: simple.

Like, not all there.

These are people whose last words could believably be “Hey, watch this!” And when something goes awry with their pedestration, the expressions I witness range from shock, as if to suggest they simply cannot understand the nerve of someone honking at them for walking into traffic from between two parked cars; to utter surprise, like they simply cannot fathom how they ended up in their present situations.

Aliens really should be more considerate about where they return their abductees.

Honestly, I think I can excuse the idiocy pedestrians exhibit. Comparatively. Let’s face it, anything catastrophic happens with the execution of their street crossing…it’s a win for Darwin and probably does the world’s collective IQ a solid by taking themselves out of the equation. It’s the potential canine or innocent child collateral damage that would bug me.

No, I think the real beef I have is with the drivers.

The shit they pull.

It’s not the excessive speeding. Nor the changing lanes without signaling.

No, nothing like that.

That behavior I get.

Sort of. Those people are just selfish jerks.

It’s more the behaviors I see that suggest that a driver just isn’t paying attention. Like oblivious would be a step up if we were to measure attention on some sort of whack scale.

Hell, I can even look the other way on my frequent observations of people driving the wrong way down a one-way street.

But what really sticks in my craw is drivers who unnecessarily yield their right of way. I know, I know…Portland drivers are world famous for this phenomenon. But the basic premise of that “No, you go” phenomenon is that the drivers arrived simultaneously at the intersection.

Honestly, I can kind of forgive that overly performative courtesy.

But stopping to yield a right of way when you aren’t required to stop? That I have an issue with. Like…so much “ugh”.

If you want to bend over backward to be kind to another driver or pedestrians who are stuck trying to cross a street outside of a crosswalk…I want to say “Knock yourself out”, but I just can’t. The issue I keep – almost literally – running into is “How many people did you inconvenience in your display of performative courtesy? Seems they can’t see the causal fallout of their actions.

Today, I saw a driver stop for some pedestrians pulling the old “crossing the street between parked cars” routine. On a two lane one-way street.

The driver practically stood on their brake pedal to yield their right of way.

I nearly kissed their back bumper and the driver next to me initially sped up as if they were going to run a yellow light before realizing what was happening and screeching to a halt.

Mind you, this all took place one car length in on the far side of an intersection where the cross street had to stop. There were cars on both sides. Looking in my rear view mirror, I saw one vehicle behind me.

Quick math: this performative courtesy inconvenienced five other people.

All because these idiot pedestrians couldn’t move one lousy car length to the corner before crossing the street. Well…that, plus they crossed paths with a dipshit driver.

Surrealiously.

I. Have. Had. It.