land of 10,000 bad drivers

I almost got run over by some idiot yesterday. I was outside wandering the streets of St Paul during my 30 minutes of freedom (better known as a lunch break) and was crossing a street in, of all places, a crosswalk.

Go figure, right? A pedestrian in the crosswalk? Crossing the street with the crosswalk light? Wow, that is truly amazing!

The driver of said vehicle was not paying attention and tried to perform a rolling stop through a red light so that he could turn left from a one way street onto another one way street. This guy had no excuse for his lack of awareness. He wasn't even yapping on his cell phone. He was just trying as hard as he possibly could to focus on driving, and obviously not doing a very good job of it. I firmly believe that what I witnessed was enough evidence to only allow this guy to operate a 50cc Vespa scooter. That way he won't be able drive faster than 30 miles per hour, making the streets of St Paul more safe.

Regardless, the individual's lack of driving skills is truly another topic for another day. What amazed me the most was my reaction to the situation.

Most people would hysterically recall the incident as "Their life flashed before their eyes."

Me? Well, I threw dagger-eyes at the driver while thinking "You better stop, or else..."

Once the vehicle came to a complete stop, I verbalized my disapproval with a well chosen one-way dialogue, in hopes of bring his derelict driving behavior to his attention:

"I do say chap, you about knocked me out of my knickers. You, my good man, should pay more attention to your motoring. Well, cherri-o."

(Actually, that is not even close to the obscenities that I spewed at the driver. But to keep this G rated I decided to go British oh him.)

Back to my point. Did the driver stop because he saw me? I'm fairly certain that he did not. He was looking for cross traffic to the right (which there was not), turning the steering wheel counter-clockwise, preparing to execute a left-hand turn, and then stopped half way into the crosswalk. What made him stop? The only logical conclusion must be that he telepathically picked up on my dagger-eyes and thoughts.

This got me thinking: Do I have super-human-mind-control powers?

I had to find out. After lunch I focused my new found talent on willing my boss to give me a raise.

No dice.

OK, so maybe that was just too ambitious of a place to start. Next, I focused on my co-worker and attempted to get her to stop complaining about her kids.

Again, no luck.

I guess that means I don't have any special powers. Unless my special powers are to make people aware of how bad they drive. And, if that's the case, I am the man for the job!