Small things in life that gravel your ass

[Rain Man]

I know I've carped on this before, but I was walking to work yesterday morning and it happened again.

I'm walking north, and per societal conventions I'm walking on the right half of the sidewalk.

Coming toward me, a half-block away, is a woman headed south. However, she's walking on the left half from her perspective, so she's walking straight toward me.

I try to train these people to be aware of their surroundings, so I kept my lane. She kept walking toward me. I kept walking toward her. I moved more to the right until I was hugging the edge, but she was unintentionally doing the same thing.

40 feet.

30 feet. How can she not know that she's on the wrong side?

20 feet. No awareness at all that a collision is imminent.

We get about 15 feet from each other, and she gives me a withering look that says, "I'm an attractive female and you're in my way so move out of my way right now or there's no way we'll ever have sex if we suddenly find ourselves as the last two people on earth."

So I moved over, but I really didn't like it.

I looked back to see if she had truly learned her lesson or if she was just posturing to get me to move over, but I don't think she had any idea. She was still walking on the far left side of the sidewalk, as if nothing was wrong.