After leaving work today in the battered farm pickup, which still needs cleaning (there's some manure, rusted chicken wire and a pitchfork in the back), I was stopped on "Main" street behind a dump truck. "Main" street is misleading; it's not the busiest place in town. Even so, the four o'clock traffic was pretty bad, probably five or six cars, and I was looking around as I waited.
Two pedestrians were crossing the street, jaywalking, an overweight couple in those dingy plaid hunting jackets. His was unzipped and as they approached my vehicle, his hand reached inside. I froze. My hands gripped the wheel, panicked. I was trapped. My mind raced: he's armed...they're carjackers...I have my computer with me...my novel...oh. Whew.
Overreaction. Jaywalking across the street and grabbing another smoke from the pack in his pocket. I guess I've still got the Rio jitters. Though obviously, not the common sense. Anyone who wants a truck with rust holes must be quite mad...
1 comment:
I was seeing drug deals all over my college campus and when I took walks at night with a friend, the passing cars going home were looking for prostitutes...
I remember we were in class and a fire truck siren went off, I kept reading but the prof stopped class to pray and I was so weirded out, because in downtown of nearly any city nothing would ever get done if you stopped to pray at every siren you heard.
I had a hard time sleeping for a while at college because it was too quiet; the screams, the sirens, the cars driving by might not have been pleasant, but it was familiar. The crickets in the woods seemed so, so loud to me for the first little while.
I wouldn't make a concerted effort to stop these natural tendencies, eventually you will adjust to your surroundings and having it happen more slowly and naturally will probably be better than wasting brain-power that could go towards your novel, instead.
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