Friday, February 8, 2008

Intersections

I went to Sidney’s this morning for coffee in the usual manner. Ordered a “Shot in the Dark,” which is basically their Peruvian blend with espresso. I explained that I had been born in Peru. This elicited some interested hoots from the wonderful coffee-ladies. Naturally, full disclosure necessitated that the truth be explained, and it was.

“Not really. It’s a small town in Illinois.”

But it became interesting again, right.

“Mom’s a soil scientist, dad’s a forester.”

Got my coffee and went my way. As I was crossing 14th Street, sans WALK signal, I was almost creamed by a pickup truck. This is no joke: if the driver hadn’t been paying attention, he would have turned me into a road-pie. It certainly didn’t help that I was wearing the following in brown: shoes, socks, pants, shirt, and tie. It wasn’t so much getting plowed-up by a truck that would have been embarrassing, it would have been that I was spending my time crossing the street thinking about stopping in at Sidney’s for coffee on a weekend. Maybe if the coffee-ladies weren’t so cool, I wouldn’t have almost got crushed.

Moral of the story: I didn’t have an adrenaline rush; no emotional response whatsoever besides humor. There was a mad smirk on my face as I made it across the street, though. Weird.