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Not too long ago, I had a nice little rant about pedestrians and their walking incompetence, in which I did not include pedestrians while they are behind the wheel of a car. Because then I would never have stopped writing. Suffice to say that the amount of moronity (is too word) displayed in walking is often carried over into driving.

On Saturday, around two o’clock, I got an overwhelming urge for plums. I’d already been out twice – the first time immediately after getting dressed when I ran up to the Farmer’s Market to get strawberries and blackberries, hair still wet from my shower and by the way? If you have never tasted an Ontario strawberry in June, put it on your Life List. There is nothing better. While I was there, I got sucked into buying cherries and gooseberries, then made myself stop with the fresh produce and go home for breakfast. Later, I went out again to rent a couple movies, came home, fed the cat and was about to make lunch when above-mentioned overwhelming urge for plums descended upon me. I tried to argue that I had a significant amount of fruit about my place, but there was nothing for it and so, I decided to pop over to the market.

I turn the corner and go up the street a little, only to discover that some asswipe who’s the proud owner of a sporty black car with blacked-out windows decided to park it so it blocked the entire sidewalk while he’s at a fancy store. He chose to do this despite there being a perfectly nice wide alley right in front of him where he could’ve pulled in while he’s at the fancy store. However, as this would require him to move up a whole car length, be considerate of others and entertain the thought that he might not be King of the World, it was apparently too much to ask. I go up next to the front passenger window and wave, attempting to get dude to move, but he doesn’t. Likely because he’s not actually in the car, but at this point, I’m unsure about his whereabouts. Squeezing myself past the car’s rear end seem unwise, not just because there’s so little left of the sidewalk that it’s not quite safe when you use wheels instead of legs, but because I don’t know if he’s in the car (blacked out windows, remember?), preparing to back up, which would most definitely mean I’d get squished, as a seated person doesn’t show up in the rearview mirrors at such a time. None of the group of people on the other side of the car – store employee, customers – notice me or when they see me, do anything about it. They’re too far away and there’s too much street noise for me to be able to yell loud enough to get their attention, so I sigh, mutter invective, turn around and prepare to go back down the street to the crosswalk and go on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. As I have done many, many times before when someone has blocked the sidewalk, their driveway past the sidewalk or refused to clear the snow. The years of accumulated aggravation does nothing to my bloodpressure levels, but I have no choice, so I turn around to take me and my elevated blood pressure to the crosswalk.

And that’s when I see the cop. Coming down the street, he has noticed my predicament, makes a U-turn and my insides start to smile. I stop for a moment, thinking to thank him as he steps out of the cruiser, but he’s – get this – on the radio checking dude’s license plate! So I meander over to the other sidewalk, keeping an eye on the cop, the car and the crowd of people, one of whom has been called over to the cruiser and am getting what I’m sure is a rather stern lecture from a law enforcement officer. And then the sporty car with the blacked-out windows moves up a length into the alley.

After years, nay, decades of being forced to swallow taking the long way around due to some fuckwit’s lack of imagination (or megalomania), after hundreds of incidents where my only option was mumbling swearwords while more distance and time was added to my path, finally, a fuckwit was challenged and made to correct his action. You have no idea how satisfying this was. No idea.

When I came home with a paperbag filled with plums, I called my local cop shop and left a message for the officer, thanking him. And spent the rest of the day grinning.