Unbagging the Cats 1

Unbagging the Cats 1

Monday, January 16, 2012

A Mindboggling Act of Staggering Stupidity

I see shadow people.

Not in the paranormal sense. None of that nonsense for me. So any of you shadow people looking over my shoulder as I type this, BEGONE! I've got no interest in you today. Nor any other day. That headless man I saw by the TV was enough for me. And he was no shadow. He was the real deal. So you amateurs find somebody else to impress.

I'm talking about roadwalkers. Not streetwalkers. We don't have them here in Backroads. They would wear their feet bloody, traipsing about our sprawling little metropolis. Nope. They do their business out of their homes. One was caught a couple of months ago. She had over a hundred clients. Allegedly. Because when her picture was put in the paper, people said, "Wait a minute! SHE had over a hundred customers? Were they blind?" No offense to any blind folks who might be reading this. But that gal was not at all attractive. She was downright scary. Though I suppose her customers were not really paying all that much attention to her face.

Getting back to my shadow people...I saw three of them on Saturday. People who walk in the roadway while wearing black clothing. What's up with that? Death wish? Black is slimming? Doesn't show stains? Warmer because it absorbs the sun's radiation better than light colored clothing? Goth statement?

At 6:30 a.m., two-lane curvy blacktop is not where you want to be wearing black jeans and a black hoodie. Even if you are walking in the lane of oncoming traffic. For cryin' out loud, get yourself a flashlight or an orange cap already! Why would anybody be walking at that hour? On the way to work, maybe? Then you have enough money to spend a dollar on illumination. Or turn around and go the other way, because there's a thrift store that would probably GIVE you such items if you explain that you're low on funds and can't curb your desire to walk in the road just before dawn.

The first shadow person startled me into jerking the steering wheel. Even though he was not in my lane. He was going up a hill, with his back to me. As I crested that hill, I saw the lights of an oncoming vehicle. I flashed my brights as a warning. At the very least, fear of a speeding ticket might make that driver slow down and be more alert for a couple of miles.

The second shadow person was closer to town, having just walked over a rickety one-and-a-half-lane bridge. I shudder to think what might have happened if two cars tried to cross over that bridge before seeing the shadow person. There's nowhere to go except up the iron railings. And a car isn't going to do that.

Shadow person number three was observed on my return trip, walking toward town with his back to traffic. Again, in the road, on a hill, just begging to be mowed down before the driver even knew what he hit.

This situation is crying for a public service announcement. Road Walkers Wear White at Night.

7 comments:

Tammy said...

Yes! Thank you for getting the word out because we have shadow people in my neighborhood. We also have the blinding-sun-people who run in the street right at sunrise or sunset. Always in the lane of the person who is blinded.

BECKY said...

Oh yes, I agree! And about people walking when the sun is blinding the drivers...how dumb are these people?? I, too, fear a horrilbe accident happening...You know what Ron White says, don't you? "You can't fix stupid!"

stephen Hayes said...

This is all new to me; I had no idea such things were going on.

Sioux Roslawski said...

We have lots of shadow people in our neighborhood as well, and they are out at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. (I know because I got home late one night from babysitting my granddaughter.) And to make the problem worse, they are often African American, so these pedestrians are REALLY hard to see.

Perhaps as a public service, the bars (where these people are coming from late at night, I suspect) could dispense reflective tape to apply big X's on their front and back...

Linda O'Connell said...

They are no smarter in the city.

Anonymous said...

We had a dog rushed to the clinic the other day because a car struck her and her owner who were jogging.
The guy (dressed in dark shadow colored jogging suit) was beat up but ok. The dog ended up dying of severe liver trauma. Oy.
I've seen other shadows running about halfway across the middle of the road on a Sunday morning in traffic on a busy road. Not the smartest thing.

Val said...

Tammy,
I'm guessing that that the blinding-sun-people wear something silvery or glaring. No black for them.

(I tried to leave a comment on your blog, but it was having none of my witty repartee. It left me outside looking in, like the orphans in the movie Oliver! watching Mr. Bumble and his cronies feast on a feast.)

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Becky,
And you can't fix pancake people. If only life was like cartoons. Then you could peel them up off the pavement and send them on their merry blinding way.

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Stephen,
You really need to get out more. At dawn and dusk. In a vehicle. But if you must walk, don't wear black at night or shiny at sunrise.

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Sioux,
We had a real live guy run over after leaving a bar on New Year's Eve. A state representative smashed him with a truck mirror. It was in all the papers, and on a road I travel every day. The party dude shouldn't have been walking on the edge of the road, but the state rep should not have been driving drunk. And he especially should not have left the scene of the accident after switching drivers in full view of a school security camera.

I like your X-marking idea. When I open up my handbasket factory, I'll stock your tape as a novelty item. Make sure to imprint it with a catchy slogan, like, "Don't Leave Tread on Me!"

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Linda,
Well. It IS still Missouri.

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Carol,
Poor pooch. People need to snap out of it. Roads are for motor vehicles. Sidewalks and trails are for people. It's not rocket science.