Every now and then, justice prevails

So there I was sitting at the intersection on my bike…a crap crossroads really. A pretty big highway ends and intersects a busy street that’s overrun with motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists. A traffic engineering clusterfuck that’s exacerbated by the light’s long interval, which seems to bring out impatience in even the laid-back-peace-sticker-on-my-biodiesel-Volvo-Santa-Cruz-hippie-types. Even more affected by this traffic-induced time loss are people on the other end of the spectrum—the ones whom are dickheads as a matter of course. They wake up dick nasty, dick the day away and go to sleep in the same dickish manner.

Light green, I proceed forward...but about half way through the intersection, the hair on the back of my neck pulls a “Danger Will Robinson.” For to the right and rear—a space where sound should only be receding by virtue of a mandatory right turn—I feel the approaching Doppler effect of an undermuffled and over-tired bromobile. A peek toward the sound confirms my suspicions and a lifted dickhead wagon—complete with custom laser-cut skull grille—comes flying by in a non-lane then swerves left, cutting me and a steady line of cars off to take his rightful place at the front (see drawing).



To be clear, I actually never felt in danger nor threatened. He passed me on the right with plenty of space and cut in far enough ahead that I could’ve stopped if I needed to. Mostly I was just disappointed that said vehicle—which I believe at one time was a Jeep Grand Cherokee—didn’t have fake gonads hanging from its trailer hitch. The truth is, I keep an ear/eye out for this move as I’ve actually been passed at this same spot in similar manner on a number occasions. Usually, it’s a tourist looking to go up Highway 9 to the state park who got in the wrong lane, are apologetic, confused and use their signal as they give that ThanksI’mReallySorry wave as they peaceably merge. Today’s occasion was just a middle finger all the way around.

Predictably, this afternoon’s maneuver elicited a chorus of car horns…at least two, maybe three--it was the kind of thing where even people in the other direction honked. I joined in by switching gears emphatically—take THAT!—making what I hoped would be a perceptible clickety-clack of outrage towards the driver. This was drowned out by the rumble of a motorcycle from the left…a white and black motorcycle that made me smile.

“Fuck man,” I heard the driver say to the passenger as the penismobile pulled over. “Fuck man indeed,” I thought as the blue and red lights bounced off the brogo covered rear window like the flashing cherry on top of a caramel sundae of a lunch ride.