The One With the Walking

People that walk slow. OH MY GOSH!  I cannot mentally FATHOM why is takes people so long to move their appendages.  I will take some responsibility, in that I walk faster than the average individual.  I have short legs, and  the misfortune of having tall modelesque friends, so I have overcompensated with a spritely stride which makes me travel further and faster than the average Homo Sapien.  But that is beside the point. Everyone else needs to be accommodating.

This is what I imagine these sloth like people to be thinking as they clog up streets, halls and alleys, “Ho, hum, what a wonderful stroll on this six inch path with lava on either side of it, making it impossible for kind strangers to pass me.  I think I’ll move as fast as Pangaea did when it broke into 7 continents.” It is so inappropriate and irritating.  Usually there are two of them walking at that robot like pace, holding hands, and it is all I can do not to sprint through them yelling, “Red Rover.”

I used to run into the problem frequently with athletes in college.  Mostly on the brick pathways where on either side were signs that said, “Please Stay of the Grass.” These Neanderthals would carefully place one foot in front of the other, as though it was the most tedious task they had to do all day.  My greatest fear is that it was the only thing they ever accomplished at school.  They were so unmoving that I wondered if perhaps they were statues, erected to block my only way to the dining hall.

Since I am often stuck behind someone slow, I have developed a particular set of skills to try and move around them.  First, I walk as fast as possible to where they stand, stop as far behind as is socially acceptable, then engage in what I like to call “revving.”  I call it this because I equate it to a car that is going to take off full speed.  It involves quick and hurried steps, until I am breathing on their neck, then I ease off, then scamper up again, and repeat the awkward heaving breathing.  I do this in the hopes that they will become frightened of the strange blonde that keeps aggressively moving into their personal space, step to the side, and let me pass.  Athletes don’t catch on so easily, unfortunately. I also engage in the “hand shoo”, where I make wild gestures like people do to dogs when they want them to stop sniffing their crotch.  Occasionally, if I am in a rule-breaking mood, I’ll step into the lava, grass, or busy street to move around these people.  This is done in an angry huff, with arms swinging to show them I am truly irritated in their social indecency.  It is also a warning that I am capable of moving quickly, so if someday I kick them in the kneecap for their sins, I will be able to escape.

Note to all you slow walkers out there: Please do better.  You are ruining the bipedal way of life for all of us.