13 November 2011

A Girl Just Wants a Little Bit of Sidewalk, and Courtesy

I was running the other day on a fairly wide sidewalk on Franklin Street in Greenpoint. A couple was ahead of me, taking up the entire sidewalk because each of them had a dog that was on a rather long leash, so there was no way to pass. I politely called, "Excuse me." They turned around, saw me, and moved over to let me pass.

As I ran ahead, the guy yelled, "You should run in the street."

Floored, I stopped. Was he serious? I actually stopped my watch and walked to him.

"Excuse me?"

"You should run in the street." He said this cockily and I tried not to think, "F-ing hipster asshole."

"That's dangerous. I'm not going to run in the street." I tried to be civil as I said this.

"You should run in the street. It's rude to ask us to move over. Be respectful."

And then I lost it. "Respectful? Rude? The sidewalk is for everyone! You don't need the whole sidewalk. Share! You are obviously not from here or you would share." Hello, public space is for everyone! I began running away.

And then there were probably some curses.

But WTF?! The sidewalks are for everyone. I do sometimes run in the street when the sidewalks are too crowded, but I think this was a good spot where they could easily share.

And as I ran away, I noticed my Garmin registering some rather fast times. Oh well, a benefit of adrenalin.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think often of the thoughts you wrote about earlier this year when you returned from your South America trip, but for different reasons. I used to love New York. But the longer I'm here, even in its suburbs, the more intolerant I find myself becoming of the assholes. I used to be able to handle the gritty uneducated union-worker class of asshole that classically occupied NYC - but they have been replaced with this entitled hipster class of asshole.. the kind of asshole who would prefer you run in a way you consider unsafe so he can experience what he considers courtesy, is the kind of asinine undeserved self-righteous garbage that has become ubiquitous around here. I imagine it's really bad in a place like Williamsburg but we're close enough to have them up here in Suffern, too. We can't change these people, nor we can't stop their continuing influx.. but perhaps we can go to a place where they don't congregate.

V said...

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! We always either cross the street or at the very least shorten our leash if we are passing other pedestrians when we're out with J. We even walk him on the median instead of peoples lawns. I can't believe this jackass running around out there and giving dog-people bad names!!