Follow the leader

Last evening, I was returning home from work and had just turned into the road leading to my house. On that road, the speed limit is only 25mph - besides being very residential, the area also has a lot of schools.

I was already driving slow. Ahead of me, I could spot a kid on a bicycle, maybe twelve or thirteen years of age, pedalling bang in the middle of the single-laned road. As I approached the kid, I slowed down further, waiting for him to move to the bike lane. His friend, who was pedalling on the other side of the road gesticulated to him to move, but this kid totally pretended he did not notice that anyone was behind him and continued to pedal slowly in the middle of the lane.

Thus, the slow procession continued - kid on bicycle, female-1(me) in car, closely followed by female-2 in another car. I was not comfortable with crossing the center yellow line to get ahead of the kid - his actions were not too predictable. Without much choice, I slowly trailed behind the bike. By then, I was torn between the simultaneous desires to: a) Honk at the kid, b) Stop my car, get out, and whack the kid, c) Laugh my guts out at the kid's obvious enjoyment.

After two more minutes of crawling behind the kid (by then he had even lost the grace to pretend he did not know there was traffic behind him and instead kept turning back and giving me wicked grins), he finally decided to push off to the bike lane. And I bucked up my car, shot the kid a not-quite-there disapproving glare, overtook him and went on my way home. Grinning.

Childhood is such a great time to do all the 'silly' things you want to do and mostly get away with them :-)!