Thursday, June 12, 2008

Crazy Guy at Kroger


Don't get me wrong. I am used to crazy people yelling things at me. I heard "Get a car!" and various other comments questioning my sexuality in the past week. Usually people yell at me from their car and quickly drive away. Today's crazy guy yelling at me was totally different. He came up to me in person.

"Hey! Hey, hey!"

I looked up from loading my bike. Usually when I hear that tone, someone is about to back into someone. Not this time. Instead, he is coming right at me.

"You," he yells, "on the bike!"

"Aw crap." I think to myself. This guy does not look normal. Still, I hope that he is going to ask me about the Xtracycle (which is carrying Lindsay's fishing pole, the girls' birthday presents, 22 pounds of ice and a 20 pack of Coors Light). Hope as I might, I don't think this is going to be a friendly meeting.

He is next to me now. "America was built on the car. The car is what made America great. You young kids today don't know what it is like to sacrifice." Really? O.K.

"When I was your age, I would have been happy to have a car. No, you have to ride some toy around. What's next? Are you going back to the tricycle?Maybe you want a horse and buggy! Gas may be expensive, but you can afford it. You know what the terrorists want? They want Americans to give up their way of life. If you give up your car, the terrorists have won. But people your age don't really care about that, do you?"

I am wondering why I lock my bike up so securely. If I would have just done the cable lock, I would have been riding off by now. Nope, I had to do the U-Lock and the cable lock.

"All you care about is whether you get something right now."

Don't worry about following his logic. I was there and I had no idea where he was going.

"Once you abandon America, the terrorists have won. We might as well have a 9/11 every day and you wouldn't even notice. It's all about you, isn't it!?"

At this point I started to ride away.

"Get on your bike you drunk! Don't think I don't see all that beer!"

Wow. This was a different type of crazy than I am used to.

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On a totally unrelated note, I found this while searching for the Grandpa Simpson yelling at a cloud. I thought it was funnier than the whole cloud thing, but it did not really fit in with the post.

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6 comments:

Jamie said...

Someone's been listening to too much Bill O'Reilly or something.

You know, I never get anything like this happening to me. I rarely even get the "Get a car!" comments that so many folks seem to report. I don't know why that is, but maybe it's just the fact I live in Clintonville and most people are pretty supportive.

As a side note, I would hazard to guess that MOST people have no idea what the terrorists really want... I listen to a podcast from the International Spy Museum on a regular basis, and the most recent one was about just that topic. Give it a listen... fascinating stuff. No wonder we're losing the war over there, we have no idea what it's really about!

Rick Logue said...

Before I go further, let me get this out of the way. I love the west side. If I had the chance again, I would move into the same neighborhood. But....

The typical west sider is a different type of person from a Clintonville resident. It's a lot like Toledo. I love Toledo with all of my heart, but that was the scariest bicycling area I have ever been in.

Now this guy was so far out there, I would have a hard time calling him a typical anything.

Smudgemo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Smudgemo said...

You're probably smarter than me. I'd have turned to him and said, "You vote republican, don't you?"

We've got plenty of crazies around here, but they're usually burned out from drugs, not propaganda.

Rockzi said...

ur blog is too gud.:)

Char said...

Hi - I came across your blog and have been enjoying reading it. I appreciate that you ride in all kinds of weather and also short rides to the grocery store, etc. I know some bicyclists here (in Washington, DC area) who won't ride to work because they live only a couple miles from the office. They don't think it's WORTH the effort to put their biking clothes on to ride that short distance! Crazy!

I bike in all kinds of weather too (my blog: http://bikerchickchar.blogspot.com/). I enjoy riding in the snow (up to 3" - as you know, after that it gets pretty difficult!).

One of my neighbors who is retired and a staunch Republican (from TX no less!) thinks it's crazy that I went car-free last year (car-free blog: http://carfree-char.blogspot.com/). He owns two cars. I told him he could donate one of his cars, and get a Zipcar membership (car sharing program). He was so infuriated at that idea, that he said, "Well, maybe I'll just go buy a THIRD car!!!" Good grief. They don't get it.... They don't get what they're missing...

Congrats on biking so much - keep it up! :)

Charmaine