Saturday, August 11, 2012

Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?

[I know, pics or it didn't happen.  I apologize, I really should have a picture of this but for a lot of boring reasons I do not so you will have to take my word that this happened]

Lunchtime in my area is busy.  There are a lot of companies in the area and a lot of employees and everyone has a different idea of where to go find something nice to eat.  For me it's a chance to go for a little bicycle ride down one quiet street and then across a somewhat busier road and then around a few buildings to my favorite cafe.

I'm bicycling down road one when I see the traffic backed up in both directions on road two.  I'm surprised. Road 2 is busy but not traffic jam busy.  The cars are not moving either, it's a parking lot about two blocks from my office door.

I look to my left and see it when "it" is a giant 18-wheeler truck at an impossible angle.  It had been driving without incident along road 1.  It came to road 2 where it wanted to cross and turn left.  It got the first part done ok, it spanned four lanes, and it kindof got the 2nd part done, it's cab was turned at a ninety degree angle parallel to road 2 and perpendicular to road one but here on step three, straighten out and keep going, it had come a cropper.

It was entirely dead in the water or I guess, dead on the tarmac.  It had died in the perfect position to block four lanes of traffic in two directions.  Cars being cars more arrived with each passing moment making it impossible for the already trapped cars to extricate themselves.  This being California no one honked or said anything, they just sat there in eerie unhappy silence.

Ever read Winnie the Pooh?  Remember the part where he goes to visit Rabbit and eats up all of rabbit's honey and gets so fat he can't fit out the door to leave?


Yeah that.  But remember the part beforehand when Rabbit figures out that Pooh is stuck in his doorway and will probably be stuck there for weeks?  That's the part where he shrugs and makes the best of it and uses Pooh's feet for towel-hangers.

Like Rabbit, the bicyclists made the best of it.  Unlike the cars we are quite little and so when we got within range of the truck we slowed, considered, and then wormed our way through the parked cars, onto and off the sidewalk, around the police who had arrived but had nowhere to direct the traffic to and then back onto the road with the giant ungainly odd obstruction behind us.

When I was done being reminded of Winnie the Pooh I started thinking of The Empire Strikes Back where Luke takes down the AT-AT.  Giant trucks are pretty scary when they're hurdling towards you at speed but once they get wedged in a spot of great tightness they look quite a bit less intimidating.

1 comment:

  1. I love Winnie the Pooh. We cyclists are perpetually a lot like rabbit in that story. He nips in and out the small back door while big Pooh is stuck in the hole...

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