Misjudged

Here are various vignettes regarding misjudgment. Some physical, some mental—some funny, some just plain judgy misjudgments.  

The Conversation: I’m riding along behind a group of ladies, varying ages. I start to catch snippets of dialogue. I don’t know why, but my drama-meter starts pinging and I strain just a little bit to hear what’s transpiring. I instantaneously create a backstory. Boom. Mom. Daughter. Daughter’s girlfriend. Rife with dramatic possibility. I hear “doesn’t work anymore.” I hear “…and it’s been going on for {muffled-indistinguishable} and I just can’t…’

I feel a tiny built guilty for eavesdropping like this, but I don’t have the engine to pass them, and it’s not really on me to stop—I mean, I didn’t *ask* them to get into it out here where strangers could be listening to the tawdry details of their personal lives. I think about making my presence known, by like coughing or something, but then there’s this: 

“But when the washing machine is halfway full it does this thing…”

The Hot Guy: He was young, handsome, tall. He rode a bike like it was a poem. But his aura was comprised entirely of stiffly waving warning flags, blown by the various breezes of insecurity, machismo, delusions of grandeur. He was a hot mess. I chose to focus on the hot.

The Corner: I came in hot. I was not. I was ejected with a quickness. Became a quivering pile of rubble on the other side. 

The Curb: Well, shit. You know how this one goes. Just a simple bunny hop. Invariably in front of a lot of people. Invariably when you’re feeling just a wee bit sassy. Plow! Pop! Crash!

The Tree: Who put the—really? Right here?

The Phone Pole: Now that’s just embarrassing. Everyone knows trees move. Everyone knows phone poles do not.

My Abilities: This one year a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away—I won the Downieville Downhill race in California. It was the last year you could race *just* the downhill—the following year you had to do the All-Mountain—downhill one day and the cross country race the next. “Well that sucks” (I don’t love the up), “…but maybe I will so completely smoke everyone in the DH that the XC part won’t matter. Mmmm. Yeah.”

 So in the lineup for the downhill race I noticed there was an empty space behind me. There were 60 second intervals between racers meaning the woman behind me would start a full two minutes later. About 4.7 minutes into this hour-long race, what do I hear above and behind me, wafting through the forest like an airborne slice of humble pie? Yup. The enthusiastic “whoop” of the woman behind me—the woman who started a full ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SECONDS behind me has bridged the gap by bending the time/space continuum and is now bearing down on me like a shark on a guppy. 

I laughed out loud, pulled the hell over and toodled down the rest of the course for my DFLAWB (Dead F*ing Last And Way Back) finish. 

The Conversation—Part Duex: I don’t like it when people share their music on trails via crappy speakers affixed to their handlebars, daypacks, fannypacks, horns, whatever. I am also preternaturally annoyed when people talk on their phones on the trail, not to mention on speakerphone—good grief call 911 because I just killed you. 

Anyway, this one time, I’m riding up a trail and I can hear that the woman ahead of me is on her phone and I’m like “God, you self-important cow. Can’t you wait until you are back in your slate-blue BMW to gab with your Chardonnay clutch about where to get the best Caeser tomorrow at noon when MOST people are at work? What a jerk. I need some nature time and here you are bla-blah-blah-ing and ruining my life. I mean, it’s not like she’s on the phone saving anyone’s life. 

“So if those vitals don’t change within the next 90 minutes let’s move him to the ICU and I’ll come in and do emergency surgery.”

*Gulp*.

These stories are nice, piquant reminders for me to embrace my favorite motto provided by a favorite 80’s band—Love and Rockets. 

“Live a life you love, use a god you trust, and don’t take it all too seriously.”