Showdown

I was driving to the park a couple of days ago and noticed a flash of baby powder blue out of the corner of my eye. It was a rather Rubenesque woman on a Vespa scooter cruising along in the wrong direction in the bike lane. Her matching helmet was strapped snugly beneath her chins. Her pink t-shirt read "fat people are harder to kidnap". In her right hand was a 44 oz Coke. Her left hand was clutching the handlebar and a leash. Her Golden Retriever was trotting along on the sidewalk next to her.

I sighed to myself over the sad state of the American obesity problem and waited for the light to turn green. Gazing ahead, I noticed a man coming the correct direction in the bike lane. He was driving a motorized wheelchair. Not a boring black one - a blue one, swathed in Veteran bumper stickers, a little American flag waving from one handle bar, and an orange wind tunnel flag flapping from the other. He had on one of those floppy round fishing hats and huge black sun glasses.

I shot off a quick prayer for the light to stay red and rolled down my window. It was the weirdest game of chicken I have ever seen. Five miles an hour tops, and neither one of them would give.

They both rolled to a stop inches from each other. The screaming began, obscenities were hurled, and the Vespa lady started getting pretty red and out of breath. She was waving her arms, yelling that he needed to move his blankety blank wheelchair out of her way because she wasn't driving in traffic. He yelled back that his wheelchair couldn't jump the curb, and he couldn't very well get out and push it over the bump so she should move her ....large bottom. The dog started barking, circled the wheelchair guy a couple of times, and got his leash hopelessly tangled in the wheel spokes. Her helmet started sliding forward into her eyes.

The light turned green. No cars moved. Everyone was watching the battle of the bike lane. Someone from the back started honking (they obviously couldn't see the drama), and we all drove away.

We came back from the park and there was a spilled Coke and what looked like a piece of orange flag on the side of the road.