I had a rather alarming encounter with a pedestrian last night! I was driving down the lane behind our street in Toronto, on my way back to Bowmanville with my car loaded full of my things. I was about three houses from the end, driving very slowly, and a man was walking down the centre of the lane. Now, there are almost always people walking back there, walking their dogs, smoking a joint, just walking or cycling. They invariably move to the side, wave, go about their day or evening. Well, this man kept walking down the exact centre of the lane. I thought that maybe he didn’t know I was there, maybe he was wearing headphones. If that was me, I would want to know there was a car 10 feet behind me. So I tapped my horn. Just one little “beep!” The man didn’t even look behind me. He simply raised his hand a gave me the finger! I was so surprised.
I continued to creep along behind him, and he stopped, turned to me and said, (excuse the language here) “Fucking asshole!” Then he flipped me off again, at which point I locked my driver’s side door. He seemed very aggressive, then SPIT at my car. I picked up my cell phone and dialed Graham, who was on my street, just a few yards away. (Graham accidentally left his phone at home last night, which I remembered as it rang.) The man knelt down in front and pretended like he was writing down my licence plate. I said to him, “Go ahead, write it down…it didn’t want to hit you.” I doubt he heard me. He wouldn’t get out of the way. I wasn’t being obnoxious or reckless or anything but wanting to make sure this man knew I was behind him. I wasn’t in a hurry. I would have waited just fine for him to get to the end of the lane. I didn’t do anything illegal or morally wrong. The whole thing was very bizarre and left me pumped full of adrenaline. He stood on the sidewalk and watched me drive away. At this point, I needed some sort of release, so being a girl, I of course burst into tears.
