I was late for work this morning. Let me explain...
It's been overcast all morning. If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably around mid-60's outside right now. It's fucking delicious. And so was the banana I'd just finished eating! I was on my way to work, cruising down Del Mar Blvd next to Caltech. Windows down so as to enjoy this beautiful weather, jamming some Tortoise on the stereo.
It never fails. Every fucking morning, I have to contend with those entitled as fuck know-it-alls at Caltech, thinking that every street near their campus is, in fact, part of their campus, and they should be allowed to walk in the middle of it with capricious abandon. Today was no different.
I'm heading toward an intersection, green light heralding me onward, when a guy, a jogger, appears from between two parked cars to my left. I barely have time to think, "surely he isn't about to..." YEP, he is! He's a good 20 feet away from the crosswalk, and even if he had been at it, he wouldn't have had a walk sign. He decides to just run across the street, traffic be damned. I don't know how close I am to him, but it was pretty close. I'm going between 30-35 when I SLAM on the breaks. It's so bad I fishtail, break traction. My heart was racing. In the moment, I was more terrified for this dude than anything else. And what does this fucker do? He flips me off and yells, "watch where the fuck you're going", then continues back onto the sidewalk of the opposing side. Jogging along, already back to paying no mind whatsoever to the fact that he almost caused a very serious accident.
I'm furious, livid. I grab the only projectile at my disposal: the banana peel. I toss it out of passenger side window, attempting to hit him with some slimy banana residue. Instead, the universe decides to give me the most glorious gift. It falls on the sidewalk in front of him and HE FUCKING SLIPS ON IT. SLIPS. ON MY FUCKING BANANA PEEL. Full disclosure- he didn't fall on his ass, he didn't even so much as scrape a knee. It looked more like he was on a Nordic Track than anything else. But the fact remains. A banana peel caused him to lose his footing. I couldn't be more pleased.
And then... as if the universe saw my reaction and was like, "nope, that's just not good enough," I hear the most delightful cackling. Like, sunshine-in-my-cup, top-o-the-morning, cheerful fucking giggling. At the intersection, on the same side as the jogger, a family of little people saw the whole thing and they are losing it. Mother, father, two daughters, laughing their asses off, really enjoying the spectacle. The dad gave me a thumbs up as I passed by. I immediately start looking for a place to park. My first thought was, "oh my god, no one is going to fucking believe this. I know! I'll ask the family of little people if they will describe what they just witnessed and let me film it!" The closest I could find street parking was a block and a half away, and by the time I got back, they were nowhere to be found. Disappeared into thin air like a clan of magical meerkats. So, sadly, all I could get was a picture of the banana peel.
But that will suffice. That, and the knowledge that there's a guy out there that almost got ran over, slipped on a banana peel, and then got laughed at by a family of little people. I wonder how his day is going.
