STOUTESTboasts

I’ve been riding my bike to work a lot lately. Feeling good about it. I’ve been working at Universal full time for the past couple weeks and am definately making improvements. The hill — Universal is on top of a big-ass hill — is getting easier every day. I stopped having to walk up part of it last week and now I’m able to pedal all the way up.

The point is, I’ve been riding a lot lately. Today, I took a different route because I went to Ralphs at Ventura and Vineland to pick up some bread for dinner. They only had the regular french bread, not the wheat that we like, so I decided to head to the Ralphs on Vineland and Magnolia. Which is more-or-less on the way home. Only a slight detour.

So I’m heading up Vineland, just south of Lankershim. Though I usually try to stay on the sidewalk, at this point I’m on the street. It’s one of those stretches where it’s hard to get up on the sidewalk. I’m not in the middle of the street, I’m staying close to the parked cars and ducking in when there’s space to allow room for people to pass me easier, even though it’s a two lane street and they can go around (and most do).

I hear a car coming up behind me so I tuck in closer, he starts honking. Not a warning honk, an aggressive “get-the-fuck-out-of-the-way” honk. He zips by me, really close, nearly pushing me into the parked cars. And there’s no traffic in the other lane, so the asshat could have easily gone around me. I recover and don’t hit any cars or him and yell out something to the effect of “Jesus! Fuck you, asshole!”

I then see his car turn into the parking lot of Little Tony’s Pizza, right at the intersection. It was an aggressive turn, if a turn can be described as aggressive. “Shit.” I pick up the speed, the light had just turned green to cross Lankershim, so I plan on booking it out of there. I get about 20 feet away from his car and his door opens. “Fuck.” Can’t stop. Pump those legs, Jared. This insane motherfucker runs toward me yelling “Fuck WHO?!! FUCK WHO!?” and takes a fucking swing at me! Now I’d like to say I was nimble and planned this out, or who knows, maybe he meant to miss, but I doubt it: I leaned away and swerved as far as the sidewalk would allow and felt his fist pass over my right shoulder.

I tear through the intersection and, looking over my shoulder, stop in front of Odyssey Video. The light has changed and he’s still in the parking lot. Some really cool guys in a Cherokee or a 4 runner, not sure which, had seen the whole thing and stopped to see if I was OK. I said I was fine, and the asshole tore by in his early 90’s, beat-up, red, poor man’s sports car. A Mazda/Toyata/Nissan whatever type POS. That’s all I got. No plates or anything, he was moving too fast. I thanked the guys that pulled over to help and took off, in a slightly different direction.

Who the hell does that? I had to have been going at least 15 mph when he tried to hit me. If that had connected, holy shit, I would have been on my back or my head on the concrete. And really, if he was in such a hurry to get around me, why the hell did he stop?

So, my thanks go out to those guys that pulled over. That was cool and, unfortunately, not a lot of people would have taken the time. And as for the neandrathal in the poor-man’s small penis car. Holy shit, dude. You need to have a long talk with yourself and work on that rage issue. Do yoga. Something. Christ, man, just relax and learn to take a little “fuck you” in stride. This is L.A. after all.