On my way home from work yesterday, I signalled for a left turn at a 4-way stop at the top of a fairly steep hill. I stopped, even placed a foot on the ground. I put both hands on my bars and started through the intersection. As my wheels just started to turn, I noticed a van pulling up to the left entrance to the intersection, and I made a split-second half-hearted signal as I rolled through the center, because their view of me on approach was obstructed, but there was still a stop sign, and theoretically my movement shouldn’t interrupt how they proceeded, and I was mostly interested in avoiding potholes and maintaing control of my overloaded bicycle at a very slow speed.

The driver shouted something out the window like “Left Turn Ssnisodfjlksdjf…!” (I have no idea, I was going downhill in the opposite direction at that point). I just smiled.

I was kind of annoyed. How dare you tell me how to signal! I was pretty indignant as I had done everything in accordance with the law. They just hadn’t noticed because they were coming up a hill where their view of the intersection was obstructed by parked cars.

Then, later, I got on my road bike, all dressed up like some dweeb. I’ve been too busy eating and playing tourist on the weekends to really ride much, but I’m allegedly riding  a century with my sister-in-law in about seven weeks, so I figured I should step it up, which means that I was extra tired and hungry coming down Mass Ave in Arlington on the way home at almost 8 pm, and if I could just keep up with traffic and avoid the worst lights I’d be home in less than 10 minutes. Home is where dinner was.

And then, some guy jaywalked slowly across 4 lanes of traffic when a mid-block, freshly painted, crosswalk was less than 20 feet away. I moved to the left side of the fake-lane (4 lanes worth of traffic, but not marked) to avoid him (at least 6 feet of space). He grumbled something to the effect of “bad cyclists!” I couldn’t understand exactly what he said because I passed behind him, not impeding his jaywalk progress, but it was not complementary.

and then smartass Nanda shouts “Thanks for using the crosswalk!”

Horrible! Pretty much just as douchey! What a jerk! There is a very mean person who lives inside of me that I cannot control when tired and hungry. So now there is some lameass jerk who hates cyclists even more than he did yesterday, and has no idea that I actually stop for pedestrians who elect to cross major streets at the legally designated locations.