It's that time of year!

It's been a few months, but we now get to share the keystone multi-use path with other people on bikes.

I remember the first time I saw somebody with one of those bicycle specific rear view mirrors.  Not those that attach to the handlebar and vibrate. Not even the ones that attach to a helmet. Nobody wore helmets back then.  No, these clipped right on to eyeglasses.

There was this guy in our neighborhood who was kind of a "pussy" as my dad would have called him.

He usually wore light brown corduroy slacks and a sort of plaid greenish button down shirt.  Also, he rode his bike everywhere.  He had these leather strap things to secure the bottom of his pant legs so they wouldn't come to any harm at the hands (or teeth) of the bike's drive train.

I was probably 10 years old or so and when I realized what the mirror attached to his "spectacles" was, I thought it was one of the coolest contraptions ever.  I knew I had to have one one day.  I hadn't yet realized that humans, unlike cars, can turn their heads.

I've since changed my opinion about these ridiculous mirrors.  I no longer feel that they are cool at all.  But maybe old people can't turn their heads.

The three people I saw on the trail the other day all had helmet rear view mirror devices.  They were all old.  Older than me even.  Who knows - maybe one of them was the guy from my neighborhood 40 years ago.  Let's just say it was him.  Let's also give him a name (♫ Tommy can you hear me? ♫).

This geriatric group was riding exclusively on comfy bikes.  When I was still about 200 yards behind them, they were riding 3 abreast.  As I approached, one rider must have spotted my reflection from her fancy helmet-mirror-attach-o-matic because she fell in behind the one to the extreme right.  Now they were 2 abreast.  Progress!

I rolled up beside the one who had moved over and said, "on your left," to get the attention of the man now in my way.  That worked about as well as his helmet mirror did (it had absolutely no effect).    

I will say at this point that I don't really care.  I'm patient about that sort of thing anymore.  There are children and puppies and things on the trail.  I'm not in a hurry.  I'll move along when I can.  It's all lollipops and butterflies for me these days.  Caveat: Those stupid goose things that sit on the trail and don't move until you go by them and they kind of hiss at you and start to run toward you.  Screw those guys.  They suck.  Maybe somebody should attach some kind of a beak rear view mirror on those assholes so it won't come as a complete surprise when the tenth cyclist in 25 seconds whizzes by.

Oh yeah, old people ...

So after a complete lack of reaction from the man in front me, I said again, a little louder, "On your left."

Nothing.

I could have sat behind him all day, saying on your left and giggling about it with Janice (that's what I'm calling the woman I was riding next to at this point).  It wouldn't have bothered me at all.  I thought it was funny.

I looked over to Janice to see if she was sharing my amusement.  She wasn't.  Also, she misinterpreted my glance in her direction.  She probably took it as a plea from me to tell her old grandpa friend to get the hell outta my way.

It wasn't.  I wanted to make fun of her deaf friend with her.  But she couldn't understand that.  Her slightly defensive response to me is the reason for this post.  By way of explanation for Tommy's inaction, she said, "He's drinking water."

The message was clear: "Are you blind or just stupid? Can't you see this man is thirsty?  All you care about is getting around him, regardless of whether or not he's in some serious need of hydration."

I have spoken before about the 4 or 5 things I learned last year that are of the utmost importance when it comes to cycling performance.  Proper hydration is near the top of that list.  So I was a little appalled by the unspoken message Janice was preaching at me.  I shrugged as if to say, "You know what Janice?  Don't tell me about the importance of proper hydration! I'm the hydration master. Got my technique down and everything. I don't be ticklin' or nothin'"*

What I didn't understand was why a deaf, blind, thirsty guy needed to be on the left side of the road to take a drink.

After I got done silently giving Janice the what for, I turned my attention back to Pinball Wizard and repeated the mantra "on your left" for a while.  I even tried to make it all spooky sounding.  drawing out the word "left"

Like, "Ooh scary.  On your le-e-eft."

Nope.

Eventually, break time was over and Tommy returned the bottle to the cage.  Finally.  Now he has one less reason to tool along in the left lane.

Turns out Janice was wrong though.  It seems the "None shall pass while I hydrate" rule was irrelevant.  After Tommy took out a small napkin and carefully dabbed at the corners of his mouth to clean up any wayward liquid from his recent foray into dehydration.  Sorry.  That last sentence was stupid.  I was just goofing around and now I don't feel like going back and fixing it.  I'm certainly not going to read that piece of shit.  Writing it was annoying enough.

That's when Janice spoke up, "Um, Thomas, this gentleman would like to pass."

Thomas got startled and almost swerved into Janice trying to get out of my way.

This made me laugh because Janice's excuse for Tommy not moving over was that he was drinking water.  Now that he was done, she would help me get him out of my way.  Like "That water thing?  That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

But then after I passed and was on my merry way, I remembered something.  Old people Love Roger [sic] Kipling.  Maybe I had it all wrong.  Janice was cleverly referencing Jungle Law.  No attacks during the "water truce."

It is a time of drought in the jungle, the rains have failed, the green plants are dying in the heat, and most of the sources of water have dried up. Hathi, the wild elephant, proclaims the Water Truce according to the Law of the Jungle, so that all animals can come and drink at the shrunken Waingunga River with no fear of being killed by predators.-- Rudyard Kipling, How Fear Came, The Second Jungle Book

Naah. They're all just stupid old people with mirrors on their heads.

And sceeeeeene!

*Samuel L. Jackson is a genius.