Caution: Old Lady Crossing

If you do any type of commuting at all, you’ve probably seen as many and varied jerks as I have. This is nothing new. But a certain a-hole at Sherbourne and Bloor today typified a big chunk of what I think is wrong in the world today. 

This old lady, this very old lady whom I won’t call sweet because for all I know she has 3 husbands buried in her rose garden – she was working her way across Bloor, a rather wide street for someone using a walker moving at the speed of turtle. But there she was, nicely dressed, doing her best to get to the other side. She was not 2 steps from the sidewalk when the light changed to green, and some soulless a-hole laid on the horn. WHY? What the hell is so important that you can’t wait 3 seconds for an elder, someone who made it through everything life has to throw at them, to an elderly, bird-like stage, to finish a rather long walk across a busy street?

Should she be taking Wheel-Trans? I dunno. But she was just trying to enjoy a bit of a beautiful sunny day, and this is what she gets. She didn’t even react. (Maybe she was deaf?) But everyone in the vicinity was shocked at this jerk’s behavior.

We don’t treat old people well enough in this society. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want my able-bodied parents moving in and rearranging my cupboards or anything, but they and others of their vintage, deserve some respect just simply for surviving! The selfish b-word in that car is missing a crucial gene. The one that controls empathy. The one that reminds him that although he doesn’t know who this old woman is, she’s someone’s relative. Someone loves her. Someone cares that she gets home safely. If I had only had a paint gun….