I'll Sue!

To the jogger who punched me yesterday afternoon:

Hi. How are you? I'm the guy you punched yesterday. Remember? It was around 6:30 p.m. You were jogging toward me, I was biking toward you. We were on opposite sides of a multi-use paved path that was 8-10 feet wide with a dotted yellow line down the middle. There was a jogger ahead of me, also moving toward you. She was on the far right side of the path, you were on the far left, leaving a lane in the middle at least 4 feet wide for me to pass through as you jogged by. But you apparently decided that wasn't satisfactory. As we approached each other, I saw you begin moving toward the center of the path, instead of staying on the far left where you'd been jogging. I wondered why you were doing that, but it didn't matter; there was still plenty of room for me. Then, as we passed, you reached out and punched my arm. You punched me! It hurt, and was also quite shocking. I turned around to look back at you and it appeared you were shaking your fist and yelling at me. I thought about stopping to ask you why you'd assaulted me like that, but I figured I was probably better off keeping my distance from a potential psychopath who randomly punches people.

Why did you punch me? You looked to be in your 30s or 40s; how did you make it this far in life thinking that punching people was a good way to communicate? I assume you were trying to suggest that I should not have tried to pass the jogger in front of me when you were jogging toward me on the other side of the path, but if so, and if you weren't the kind of person who would rather punch than talk, I would beg to differ. There was plenty of room—plenty!—for all three of us on that trail. If you really think you need at least a 5-foot distance from all other path-users at all times, may I suggest you find another path to jog? The path we met on is very popular, and it's especially crowded between about 5-7 p.m. as people commute home from work and/or get their evening exercise after work. Most of the trail's users appear to understand that we must cooperate to use the trail. It's called sharing—you should really try it. However, if you really need a trail to yourself, perhaps you could try jogging at midnight; I bet the trail is fairly empty at that hour.

Really, I don't care what you do, except, please don't punch me again. If you do, I'll have to stop and ask politely for your name and address. I'm sure it won't take more than a day or two for the summons to reach you and then you can see whether a judge thinks it's ok to punch people for no reason at all.

Thanks, and have swell day. Sincerely,

Your friendly bike commuter.

Posted 07:08 AM | Comments (17) | life generally