Monday, February 01, 2010

Howdy Neighbor!

Temperature at departure = 26° F (-3° C)

What a weird encounter! With three hours sleep last night and the threat of freezing drizzle and snow on the way, I decided that I needed to get out this morning and jump start my day. It was a nice ride on mostly side streets -- until I was just shy of one mile from home.

I was riding on a two lane, minor arterial street. A car was approaching from the other direction and slowly crossed the yellow line into my lane. It was a neighbor of mine from a few houses down and they had a really angry, determined look on their face and were muttering something to themselves as they traveled head on my direction. I pulled down my balaclava, exposing my face, smiled and waved. The look on my neighbor's face was, as they say, priceless.

Now, there are many ways I could handle this. I've decided, for the most part, to just act as though it never happened ... with this one exception:

With five kids, I've never really encouraged them to go door to door for the various fund-raisers that they participate in for school, sports, church, scouts, etc.. I just didn't want to be a pest. Now, however, this neighbor of mine will be visited for each and every fund raiser my kids have. Within the next month they'll be encouraged to buy trash bags, cookie dough, entertainment books and flowers. Why not have fun with it?

5 comments:

John said...

I guess they'll be getting tinted windows too...
I had exactly the same thing happen last year...except the person was from church!

Brian W. Ogilvie said...

That's awfully big of you. But you might want to check with other cyclists in the area to see if there's a pattern. Around here, a few years ago, there was a motorist who was threatening cyclists. The police took action after they got a number of reports, revealing a pattern. Hopefully your neighbor was scared straight, but it would be a shame for someone else to be buzzed, or worse, because you were magnanimous.

Anonymous said...

warren-t.blogspot.com; You saved my day again.

Health & Wellness said...

I like the fund raiser idea...I'll have to keep that one in mind. :)

Mr. Nebraska Outdoor Addict said...

I love it!