Irony?

I'm not sure that's the word I want to use here...

Commuting home through Federal Way this evening a red pickup threw a full plastic water bottle at me as it sped south of the Commons (now with all lights turned off so I couldn't pick out his license number - really bright move) weaving through a few other cars before disappearing ahead. The bottle landed adjacent to me and bounced into the side of my front wheel (harmlessly thank goodness) - but the outcome could've been much different had it hit my torso or head (or got tangled in my wheel) causing me to lose my balance or otherwise crash with perhaps dire consequences. Only 30 seconds after I lost track of the p/u ahead a Federal Way cop cruises by and gives me a nice wave.

Without so much as a good description, license plate number or look at the actual characters who demonstrated their juvenile behaviour I didn't have cause to flag him over to make any sort of report.

And that's basically the world we cyclists live in day in & day out; relying on the majority of good citizens to look out after us (sometimes begrudgingly) with a heavy amount of trust as we share the road with them. The physics don't act in our favor if their 2+ ton plastic, metal, and glass surroundings encounter us on our bike with a 9 oz helmet. We live with a huge target on our backs for a tiny, but dangerous, minority who derive some sort of misguided pleasure in harassing those (seemingly) more vulnerable. And we never know which one of those bullies determined to endanger us is actually going to score on us one day; perhaps never having a clue what short or long term damage they might inflict.

The irony here is that my first such encounter of this type of idiotic behavior occurred in Dallas in the early 80's - where I had just gone for a nice (though blustery) 3+ hour ride earlier in the day. But I can still see in my minds eye, more than 25 years earlier, that brown beer bottle floating by at eye level in slow motion from left to right as the pickup sped off up the road. That quite literally opened my eyes up to the world of them verses us. Be very wary of them.

My ride in the Big D was actually quite pleasant today except for the jerk running his mutt around White Rock Lake. Having his little yapper on one of those expandable 30 foot leashes taking up the entire shared pathway - and he couldn't hear me coming because of his headphones blasting and the wind rustling. So when I inch up to him and finally got around I give him a bit of a look with a little shake of the head and he unloads the F bomb on me. Now sticks & stones and being clotheslined by a leash may break my bones but... I resisted the urge to lower myself to his level and just continued on my way.

I wonder if leash boy owns a pickup?