The following are things I occasionally find myself shouting from my car, while driving, thus marking the onset of years:

  • Cross with the light!
  • Cross with the fucking light!
  • Don’t wear yourself out trying to get out of the way!
  • Hang up and fucking drive!
  • Hang up and fucking walk!
  • Who taught you to look both ways? Helen Keller?
  • It’s the one on your right! The long, narrow pedal on your right!
  • That must be some great life insurance, asshole!
  • Do not just walk out there!
  • DAMN IT I SAID DO NOT

Honest to the gods, I do not know how people survive being pedestrians. When I was a freshman (yes, yes, make the back-in-my-day joke, just go for it) at orientation they made a thing out of warning us – since so many of us, myself included, were from hick towns with no sidewalks or crosswalks or the like – that we needed to use the signals and look both ways and everything. Now the undergrads just walk out in front of you or, better yet, walk out in front of you with their hand up in a STOP motion. That’s real nice, kid. I hope Student Health can sew that hand back on after someone’s grille snaps it clean off.