The first thought? My phone. Nope, it’s expensive and could easily identify me.
The second? My keys! Nope, same as the phone.
I looked around. The orange flags hung from their 3/4” dowels, officious safety hatches ready to be flung.
Oh sure, they were there so you could signal to traffic intentions to cross the street. When the cars didn’t stop for me crossing with my children, they made great projectiles.
I’ve had some irate drivers in too much of a rush to stop for children stop and confront me about safety and damage to his car.
With my children beside me all I could do was giggle and tell them it’s a ‘them problem.’
My problem? Grip strength. Sometimes those flags are heavy. Waving them can take it’s toll on the arms of an old man like. Once the tennis elbow and the arthritis kicks in, flags fly and speeders feel it.
Aging is a terrible thing. I can’t run like I could and as my grip strength decreases, I carry a much smaller sack of fucks with me when I’m out about in the world.
But this day, I found something, just to have in my hand, maybe not to throw, but to have in my hand - ya know?
When the kids were young, I was less aware, more extreme. On more than one occasion someone blew through a fully lit cross walk with a crossing guard, fully clad in high vis clothes and holding and aluminium stop sign waving frantically at them
On more than one occasion, either of my kids could have bolted into that driver in an attempt to ‘race’.
In addition to being prepared to hold my impulsive children back, I’d come armed.
I had an old kids backpack I carried with me. I wish I filled it with zip lock bags filled with fake blood (you see where this is going) but I didn’t.
However, for the sake of the foolsletter, let’s pretend that I did. I did indeed carry a Dora backpack daily filled with ziplock baggies filled with fake blood.
We will do this - you dear reader and myself for two reasons.
We all have those moments that we’d love to go back to. After the fact, we know the perfect thing to say and the ideal way to deliver it. Thi is an attempt to right a wrong, a time to do justice to those moments when we had everything lined up to say the perfect smack down thing, but we either missed it or held back. These are times of regrets that should we not wish to live them in the world, the richness of your imagining of the situation may be rewarding enough.
I think as we proceed with the story telling and consumption, it will allow for a bit more fun. Let’s see shall we?
enterfictiverealitygoboommeow!
But before we do, as I tell you this tale, it tickles me to reflect on what I found to hold in my had to sooth me, yes jimmie, you can bift something at the assholes.
And when you realize what I found and was holding, I hope you smile too.
We were walking to schoo, the three of us. The kids clattered along on their scooters. I carried the back packs. The Tow Mator Backpack. The Tangled Backpack and my backpack - the Dora the Explora backpack, fully loaded.
I’d set up the backpack ten days prior - the last time someone blew through the crosswalk. That person got hit by the crossing guards’ stop sign. Old Sheila? She was a champ. She wielded that stop sign like Captain America with his shield.
BOOOM! She slapped the arse end of an Audi as it launched along the way.
That was impressive. They were going so fast, it’s amazing that you hit them. I was truly in awe of her vigilante prowess.
We all have our talents. I got the plate number too. They’ll have someone come visit them. I wish we could send the cops to visit them at work. That’d slow them down.
Sheila was old school. Not only did she want a pound of flesh, she’d heat the tongs for tearing and the blades for flaying. It’s rumoured that Sheila was a member of an underground resistance movement in Czechia in the seventies where she was involved in a series of abductions, tortures and eventual murders of some high level Communist party officials.
Her talents were enough to make her my hero. If she murdered communists in Czechia in the 1970’s? She’s a legend.
It was a bright May day. The morning air was filled with the scent of hope, promise and possibility. Spring was here, yet a hint of winter’s chill remained. The kids scootered as normal.
Clang clang clang down the sidewalk.
Clang clang clang back to me.
My son was trying to ‘jump’ it. My daughter was experimenting with the sounds and sparks thrown by dragging the metal brake across the concrete sidewalk.
I saw her coming - the driver. She was driving a champagne Lexus SUV. By the look of the body roll, she was likely doing 65 - 70 kph in a designated 40 kph school zone. Sheil bellowed: STOP and held my kids back.
Me?
I had the backpack.
I can still see it. The entire scene still unfolds before me in slow motion. I’d like to say that the backpack arced through the air with Dora singing the ‘backpack song’ but that’s not what happened. I bifted the bag directly at the speeding SUV’s windshield. It did what you’d expect. The bags of fake blood exploded and blood went everywhere.
Other families saw the whole thing unfold. The SUV appeared. The backpack hit, then exploded sending blood everywhere. Our neighbour Lenny, he had a full sized standard poodle - a white one named ‘Jiffy Pop’. they were walking by just as Dora the guts and gore-a backpack of blood exploded.
Lenny’s face was red with rage and Jiffy Pop, sicky with corn syrup and red with food colouring.
I can only imagine what it was like for the driver: One minute she’s boosting around the corner at 128bpm with LMFAO blasting out “I’m sexy and I know it”, the next, she runs over a kid. All she can see is the kids backpack and blood everywhere.
Can you imagine what you’d do if on your morning commute, one minute, you’re on your way, the next minute, you’ve run over a child, there’s blood everywhere and a little childrens character is waving at you and screaming OLA!
I do not think she’d ever speed again. I know that I wouldn’t.
So today, crossing with my dogs and my wife, I was ready for battle. I had neither a crosswalk flag nor a blood filled back pack in my hand ready to throw.
Instead, I held the feather of a crow.
The impulse to war and rage and battle is aways there.
My first choice is typically still to look for a rock or a log or a bag filled with blood designed to shock and destined to really get your attention.
I used to block out my first choices, now, I don’t resist.
Pay attention to your first impulses. Allow them to exist. They are there for a reason.
And if you let them live without action - as an impulse, idea, thought, or the first place you reach?
Then you might be lucky enough to find safety with a crow’s feather.