I’ve always been partial to doing as I please. That way, I’m pleased, and henceforth you’re pleased. I find it a most viable solution. I don’t rush to the office to reach the 9 o’clock deadline as perscribed in my contract. I rather stay one half-hour longer in the evening, if it’s required. And that’s one of the good things about working in an office. Nobody checks in to see whether you’re late or not.
I tried that when working in the convenient store before I moved here, but discovered that if you’re not around to open the store the store isn’t opened. And then, then people will be calling making complaints. In a convenient store EVERYONE notice your absence.
I’ve no general problem with mothers.
Honestly, I don’t.
But this particular morning I saw something that I’ve seen way too many times before to just shut my gap about it. Mothers reaching a deadline. Actually, I never believe that they actually reach it, but judging by their frantic appearance where they run they look like they strongly believe that they just can make it.
Not that they don’t. I don’t know. I’m just here to tie up the knots.
The thing is the baby bugger. The baby on wheels.
When I was on my way to work this morning I was more or less late, but being the first day after the Easter Holidays I was quite confident it would be one of those startup-days when the engine mostly run at half capacity. So I walked rather than hurried. I could’ve done the hurried walk for the sake of appearance, but confident I was.
I’d just crossed the street by the small "muslim bench" (it’s a long, carved stone at bench-height that has all these arabic signs on them, probably telling you not to piss on the street or something) rounding the corner by that little red house where ex-convincts are trying to fight their way back to societey – or jail, for that matter. That’s when I saw her.
A mother.
She was doing the hurried walk, but I didn’t mind since mothers always do that walk. They seem to be in a constant state of being late somewhere. And pushed in front of her was the baby buggy – 1 piece of baby in it. From a distance of at least 100 metres (300 ft.) she saw that the green lights flashing WALK was soon to be replaced by that intolerable red DO NOT WALK. I think DO NOT WALK upsets mothers, since they’re always in a hurry. And she began to ran.
Now,
The baby wasn’t crying at the time they passed me, s/he was smiling like a darling bud of May, and who wouldn’t? The world is alot funnier when you see it in fast-forward. But most babies don’t think ahead. They don’t think of the risk involved in such kamikaze stunts as this one. They don’t recognize the dangers of fast-forwarding. But mothers are thus capable.
But she didn’t. She was going for the light – that dazzling, almost hypnotic-green WALK – at a speed that would’ve upset most giant ground sloths in the late Pleistocene and would’ve ended in catastrophe if something had happened. There are careful considerations as to physical concerns. Take gravity, for instance. A small rock under one of those buggers’ wheels at that velocity would produce more than a small jump. We’re talking flying baby. And that’s not to mention the traffical considerations.
.. And this is the kind of thing I worry about on my way to work.
But the story ended well. This story, at least. I wonder whether she made it or not.
By the way, today is a Treat-Yourself-Tuesday. You’re obliged to treat yourself with something good today. Some dark-brown chocoloate, for instance. What is the TYT? you ask. It’s those Tuesdays acting on behalf of Mondays. They feel like Mondays, they have the same theoretical meaning as Mondays, but they’re actually Tuesdays. The Treat-Yourself-Tuesdays. So treat yourself. On my part, it’s back to work.