I don't think I'm doing well at interacting with the general public today. I pull up to a coffee shop and I notice that the couple sitting on the sidewalk bench are staring at where I'm driving as I pull up, slowly moving their heads in sync with the vehicle. It's a little fitness model-type and her lightly tattoo beefy bodybuilder boyfriend. As they continue to stare — at this point I'm parked and walking into the store — I ask them, “What, did I run something over? What's the problem?”
In an Austrian accent he says to me, “no man, we just like your car — what do these cost new?”
“A bit under eighty thousand I think.”
They don't say anything at all, so I'm not really sure what to say. Anyway, then as I'm driving home, I have to pull onto a side street which involves me driving through pedestrians. I wait for a gap and drive through, but some old lady in front of me inexplicably stopped her car in the middle of the road so I couldn't continue down the street. A woman and her daughter who'd crossed behind me knocked on my passenger window so I rolled it down.
“Don't you look where you're going!?!”
“Sure, I do.”
“Didn't you see us?”
“Yes, I saw you.”
“You almost hit us.”
“Yes, I know. So what?”
“You almost hit us!”
“Emphasis on 'almost'. If I wanted to hit you, I'd have hit you. So unless you were planning on leaping as you crossed, you were at no risk of being hit by me.”
“You almost hit us!!!”
“Oh, were you planning on jumping in front of my car? I'm sorry, I had no idea that was your plan.”
“You almost hit us!!!!!!”
“Look, I didn't hit you, I knew where you were, and I don't care what I almost did. So unless one of the two of you is planning on jumping in front of me right now, fuck off.”
I sort of think they were expecting an apology, but I'm not so good in that department. I don't “almost” or “could have” anything. If I want to kill a pedestrian, I'll do it, and I won't miss them. If I want to blow up an airliner, I'll blow it up, and no search is going to find the bomb. Luckily I have almost zero interest in doing either of those things.
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