Road Rage - Jogger Style

Yesterday it was 100o outside and way too hot to play at the park.  Lexie suggested we load up the runts and go to the beach.  Great idea!  So, we did.

The traffic was easy and there were plenty of parking spaces on the street, so we decided to try our luck and see if we could park on the lower street right by the beach instead of having to walk down the pier.  The lower street is a skinny two-way street with a sidewalk on the beach side, and then the sand, of course.  Speed limit is 15.

I was tootling along at 15 mph and the sidewalk had a few people on it, a guy on a goofy looking bike was in the oncoming lane and a guy was jogging in my lane coming toward us.  I didn't give him a second thought because 1. he looked agile enough to move out of my lane and onto the sidewalk like the other pedestrians  2.  he was an adult and I assumed had the brains of one and 3. I'm going really slow and he has plenty of time to get out of my way.

But, that's not how it went.  He must have thought I should move over into the oncoming lane (nobody was coming so I suppose I could have, but the goofy bike guy was in that lane).  I kept going at top-speed, 15.  And the guy didn't move over.  Instead he fist-punched my side mirror on the passenger side!  Yeah, he did!

I stopped and hopped out, ran around to the passenger side to see the damage and the guy starts yelling at me!  He was mad at me?  He punches my mini-van full of mini-people and he's mad at me?  What?  Then I thought, "Oh God, what if he punches me now?"  I quickly ran back around and hopped in the van.   He seemed to be fine and the van was fine, Mr. Raging Fists turned around and jogged away still yelling. 

He knocked the mirror right out of the mirror  holder and the whole unit was folded in to the door.  They do fold in, its a pretty common feature on big vehicles, but it takes a good solid push to fold it in. The mirror was hanging by the wires that allow me to adjust it with the button on my dash. That goodness or it would have fallen to the street and broke.

We did get lucky and got to park right there at the edge of the beach.  I popped the mirror back together and it's good as new.  Lexie was shaken a bit because it was all on her side of the van.  I was just hoping the crazy jogger didn't jog back and see our parked vehicle unattended.  It was fine when we got back to it.

Next time I see a jogger in my lane who has plenty of room to move over into the pedestrian space, I will not assume that he will. Lesson learned. Silly me.