... Can renew your faith in humanity. A couple of weeks ago I had a passenger in a silver Hyundai that zoomed by me, yell "Dumb Fuck!" at me. Not the first time and not the last, I'm sure. All for daring to exercise my right of way at a four way intersection where I had the right of way (and no stop sign... whereas they did have a stop sign...). I've had it worse in my years. Yelled at, given the finger for no real reason, yesterday someone screamed something unintelligible out their truck window as they drove by me. Either they wanted to startle me, which they did achieve to a certain extent or they were having a sudden stroke and/or heart attack. I've had cans thrown at me when I was young and been driven by so close while I was doing 30-35mph downhill that the car mirror came within a couple of inches of my elbow.
That was a scary one, but yesterday, in fact at the same exact intersection as the dumb fuck driver yelled a guy in a green Dodge Challenger waved me in front of him. He had the right of way going straight while I was turning and it was pretty awesome of him. I gave him a big thank you wave and then accelerated of up a little uphill stretch at 17-18 mph feeling the kick of strength. It was invigorating getting treated respectfully. And then today after slogging out sixteen hot and humid miles I did something that I never do, fumbled my water bottle going to put it back in the cage and watched it roll into oncoming traffic. A guy actually stopped (in a 45 mph zone...) and waited for me to drop my bike and grab the bottle from the road rather than just zooming around it or running it over. Little acts, people, they are gratifying.
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