david taus

In Which Our Hero Readies His Slingshot

music: Charles Mingus- Oh Yeah

Anyone who has navigated a bike through Boston has experienced a type of anger unknown to the rest of the human population. This city is easily the worst city in the country for driving, but luckily most of the people here are horrible drivers. things even out for motorists, but plug bikes into the equation and aggrivation ensues. I’ve been biking here for the better part of three years now, and while it remains the most efficient and fastest way to get around, I am still sometimes ready to swear off the whole business. This past week was one of those bad weeks for pedal pushers.

I don’t know what it was: the beginning of fall? the crush of college kids filling the streets again? Something was in the water this week that made people drive crazy. I’ve never been cut off or ignored on my bike as much as I had been this past week. Road construction seemed to be at an all-time high. I don’t think it was me either-i’ve been riding as I always have, aspiring to the likes of S.T.: defensive, but aggressive. And making like there’s a million dollar bounty on my head.

The usual obstacles were there, and bad. drivers turning right that pretend you are not there and cut you off, cars at a stoplight lined up too close to the curb, and of course the evil behemoth of the road, the witless, clumsy leviathan, a biker’s worst enemy-the MBTA bus. All this I had to deal with, yes, but my battle royale this week took things to biblical proportions. Literally. This week involved a near-miss with a moving van with the word “Goliath” printed on the side. The symbolism is almost too uncanny. But it is appropriate, that moving van pulled a horrible move, even by Boston standards, and nearly pushed me off the road and into a crowd of sidewalk pedestrians. I was livid.

Enough is enough. I see it’s a battle.

I’ve had the idea before, but now I’m really thinking about doing it: mounting a slingshot onto my bike and carrying around a bag of marshmallows. So when a car is doing something especially stupid or rediculous I could just peg them with a marshmallow. A shot across the bow, as it were. I don’t have a horn to lean on as every car in the city seems to do, so I figure this would at least start to even the odds. At the very least i’m thinking about getting a slingshot even if it doesn’t mount easily onto my bike and just pegging cars if they honk. I’m peeved with the traffic here. I’m more than peeved. It cuts to what I think is the root of all the problems that humans face these days: a false sense of self-entitlement. People drive like they are the most important person for miles around, and they by divine right are deserving of the quickest passage to their destination. They deserve nothing, thank you. They deserve a humbling dose of marshmallow-on-the-windshield.

I can’t wait for Critical Mass.

Posted by davidtaus at October 3, 2004 11:33 PM