Crossed

I really have to question the whims of Fate at times, especially in regard to behavioral reinforcement. We are learning all the time through what we do that gets rewarded and what we do that gets punished, and one would think some overriding force in the universe would be aware of that.

The other night my girlfriend and I ordered take-out from a Brazilian restaurant near her apartment. The location of the building was close enough that we walked over to retrieve our food, rather than driving. That's better for the environment, and gets us exercise, which is good for us. From a Karmic standpoint, we seem to be on good footing, wouldn't you say?

The restaurant is on the opposite side of a major street relative to her place, and positioned about halfway between two intersections with stoplights. To cross the street either we had to walk the away from the restaurant and then double back, or go past it and then double back; either way it tacks significant extra distance to the walk. Well, a third option did exist: We could jaywalk in the middle of the block.

As we were directly opposite from it, I noticed a break in the oncoming traffic, then looked back and thought there'd be a break in the other direction's traffic momentarily. "Wanna make a break for it?" I whimsically asked. We made a break for it, easily crossing the first half of the street. However, a car turned out from a side street and blocked our continuation across the other half, thwarting my plan. However, it would only be a matter of time until the cars going the other way let up, so we waited between the double yellow lines in the middle of the street.

Like the house in the song by Madness, yes.

Admittedly, this was not an admirable ploy, as we were, technically, not in the right, but we weren't actively blocking any cars from proceeding. Karma may have been a wash at that point.

The remaining distance had two lanes of traffic to cross. We needed only a small break to traverse it. It shouldn't be long.

Then a motorist in the lane nearest us saw us and insisted on coming to a stop to facilitate our less-than-lawful crossing, despite a line of cars behind him. We waved him to continue. He resisted our commands and continued to stop. In addition to be oblivious to the irritated drivers behind him, he wasn't noticing that the cars in the other lane, the one farther from us, were not stopping, as they couldn't see us.

He wouldn't budge even though we flailed our arms to beseech him to move.

Finally we gave up and started out in front of his motionless vehicle, in hope that someone in the other lane would notice us before we were sprawled across the hood. A moment later a car very begrudgingly allowed us to pass, honking and yelling obscenities at us as we did. Okay, we deserved that, although if the first driver could just muster the will to believe that, really, we were okay without his pseudo-charity, and he had allowed us to wait until we could cross without inconveniencing anyone we could have avoided paying such penance.

Having learned our lesson, on the walk back with our food, we made a point of walking down to the intersection with the crosswalk and the green light. We were obeying the rules, which would seem to be what Fate would seek to reinforce, I would think.

When we got to the corner the light was red, so we waited for it to change, even though there wasn't much cross-traffic at that point. As I noticed the light turning amber for the other direction, in front of us a car made a right turn on what was still (for us) a red, but there were no oncoming cars to impede it, so that was allowed. The reason the driver didn't just wait the extra second for the green appeared to be because the impatient jerk behind him honked.

The light turned green for us, replete with a walk sign showing from the opposite corner. We stepped off the curb, and… stopped suddenly as the impatient jerk (in an SUV, talking on a cell phone, naturally) made a right turn directly in front of us, wheels squealing as they drove over the lines of the crosswalk that gave us the right-of-way.

My girlfriend made an obscene gesture at him as he sped away. My hands filled with the bags of food, I could only sneer at his fading taillights. We continued across without further incident.

To recap: When we jaywalked, we got honked at but did not come close to getting hit; when we went to the crosswalk, we nearly got plowed into. That's hardly the ideal way to encourage us to obey the rules the next time. I'm just saying.

I suppose in the future we'll just get it delivered.