Flibbertigibbet

Panic! On the Sidewalk

Monday morning's weather was beautiful as I set out for work. I put a happy song on my iPod and set out from my building on my five block stroll to the subway station.

I'm a pretty fast walker, so it wasn't long before I started to overtake modest, little woman walking in the same direction. I was abreast of her as we reached an intersection, she scampered across the street ahead of me. I took no real notice of this apart to think to myself, "There aren't any cars coming. There's no need to worry." And I proceeded on my way.

She was perhaps 5' 6", wearing a matronly outfit of dark blue slacks, comfortable-looking black shoes, a blue cardigan, and a white blouse. She struck me as the sort of woman who might be an elementary school teacher but her career could not have been long judging from the lack of significant gray in her hair. I gauged her age to be in her mid- to late-30's.

It wasn't long before I was less than a half dozen strides from passing her again. This time we were midway along the block when she scampered ahead of me again. I thought this was strange.

Not even a quarter of a minute later, I was noticing my shadow that the sun was casting on the sidewalk ahead of me. I watched my shadow run along the shop fronts past this little woman as I caught up to her again. Again, she took off in her stiff-legged trot to get ahead of me.

I caught up with her a fourth time and she did it again, this time dodging around other pedestrians.

I am 6' 2" tall and over 180 lbs. I'm fair of hair and skin. My build reads as slim to athletic. While I'm not a small person, I also don't present a very imposing figure. Any gravitas I bring due to my bearing usually comes from the fact that I have a rather firm set to my jaw and a somewhat grim, unblinking look. Nevertheless, this woman was running from me.

Naturally, I thought this was funny. I could barely contain my laughter.

Here we are: two pedestrians, walking down the sidewalk in the morning sun with other pedestrians, and this woman is dead-set on either getting away from me or merely getting ahead of me.

I couldn't be sure of her objective, but that didn't stop me from speeding up my pace so that I could catch up with her even more quickly.

She never let me get ahead, though. She started running for greater and greater distances to allow her more time to walk.

We repeated the process more than a half dozen times before we reached the subway stairs. She mounted first and I was a three or four strides behind her. She didn't look at me as she climbed the stairs and I walked beside them to reach the entrance. She was only seven or eight steps ahead of me on the stairs when I began taking them two at a time.

In no time I was close enough to where I had to slow to her pace to keep from hitting her when I brought my knee up to take the next step. I couldn't pass her due to traffic coming down the stairs, so I contented myself with simply looming over her from behind.

She went to one side of the platform and I proceeded to the other. My train was waiting when I got to the top, so I didn't even get to see her from across the tracks.

I still don't know what she was doing, but I thought it was a very fun game to chase this mousy little school marm to the subway station on Monday. And the weather couldn't have been more perfect for the diversion either.