I happened upon the scene of an accident this afternoon as I was cruising from one side of Lansing to the other on my motorcycle, and felt an immediate bond with one of the people involved. Almost as immediately, that bond was severed as neatly and as completely as it is possible to do. A young woman was laying in the middle of Capitol Avenue, at the intersection of Capitol and Saginaw, next to her bicycle. I have been there and done that, personally. In fact, this lady would have to tangle with an automobile at least two more times in order to catch up to me, were we to make it a contest. Really, I would rather not. There was a car parked nearby, and a Lansing cop had his cruiser half way into the right hand lane on Saginaw, moving traffic over a lane while he stood next to the young woman laying in the road and made sure she was not run over.
I am sure at this point you are wondering to yourself "Ah, but David, what about that severed bond? What happened to the sense kinship you felt with the young woman?" By golly, that would be a valid question, too. As I made my way past the scene, I was quite happy to observe several things. First, no copious amounts of blood were pooled around the bicycle rider, which I think boded well as to her physical being. Second, she was not flopped on the pavement screaming out her agony to the world, which is more than reasonable when your 30 pound mode of transportation tangles with a 3500 pound vehicle. Also, she was fully conscious, which was also a very good thing. No limbs twisted at awkward angles, no big, ugly, missing patches of skin. In fact, not much in the way of distress at all.
"Uhh...David? That lost sense of kinship?" I was coming to that, in my own sweet time. You see, it was what this young woman WAS doing as she lay on her back at a busy intersection during afternoon rush hour, while a policeman guided traffic around the scene. As she lay in the street, on the warm pavement, what this lady was doing was chatting on her cell phone. And yes, I am aware of what wonderful devices these are in times of emergency. This young woman could very well have been giving an ambulance crew directions to the scene. Or, she may have been telling her mother that she was going to be late for supper. Or, she could even have been phoning her lawyer, and making an appointment for the following morning. What a great time to 'Call Lee Free'. God knows, I have fantasized of tapping into that third choice more than once. However, from the attitude of this young woman, the way she was behaving and the look on her face as she lay there and talked, I find it all too easy to envision a conversation with a friend that began with the words "You'll never guess what just happened to ME!" Really, you could have slipped a ruffled pillow under her head and tossed a comforter over her and I do not believe she would have looked any different than had she been all tucked away in bed for the night. I do not want to make myself sound too ancient, but darn it, when my friends and I got banged up our bicycles we at least had the decency to lay there and cry for a few minutes before we began discussing the wreck.
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