Ambulaphobia

The Fourth of July has come and gone. I thought Hammett might be scared by all the explosions that occur in the Mission at this time of year, but after one particularly loud bang, I spotted him athwart a sunny patch of carpet in an attitude of extreme ennui, tail curled into a doughnut shape.

That day, Sir Dave and I went to the new movie theater in the mall where Bloomingdale’s is to see Sicko, Michael Moore’s film about the health-ravaging—I mean, health care system. I give the new theater two thumbs up: the auditoriums have extreme stadium seating so that the person in front of you would have to be eight feet tall in order to block your view, and the seats are comfortable and covered with some synthetic material that can easily be mopped off, as opposed to a woven material that gets stained with god knows what over the years.

Plus the toilets have old-fashioned handles and not the automatic flushing system. Naturally one has peed on the seat, as naturally one, with one’s severe case of OCD, is not going to sit down on most public toilet seats. However, the person of conscience, such as myself, will wish to make at least a token attempt to mop up the golden (or pale, depending on time elapsed since ingestion of vitamin B) droplets with a wad of toilet paper, so as not to offend the next visitor. With the automatic flushing system, one very much risks getting a faceful of toilet water and pee.

Not only does my online dictionary claim “faceful” is not a word, it actually returns a URL error. Well, I’m sticking with it.

In the past week, I have had one actual, physical collision with a complete stranger and one near-miss, from which I conclude that people, not excluding myself, are increasingly rude and clueless.

Case one: I am walking into Walgreens (using the wrong door, but whatever).

This happens to be the Walgreens on Kearny St., just north of Market. I sometimes go to two different Walgreens stores in one outing, because it just seems better to buy hand lotion at one Walgreens and Sonicare heads at another.

Anyway, I’m already inside the (wrong) door (I didn’t actually realize it was the wrong door until I was leaving the store later) when along comes a young lady (well, a young woman) and her small daughter. There is not quite room for two people to stand, or pass, side by side. Obviously I am not going to back out the door, but nor is the young woman going to stop proceeding toward the doorway, as evidenced by the fact that she does not stop, and next thing I know, we are actually physically in contact, at which point I say “Good lord,” in my best eighteenth-century manner, and somehow we get past each other.

Case two: I am walking along Third St., which turns into Kearny St. (hmm, maybe this is basically a problem with Third/Kearny St. itself), on a section of sidewalk which is quite narrow, outside a building housing luxury condominiums and a hotel. I am politely hewing to the right.

Along comes a young gentleman (well, a young man) steering adamantly to his left. Obviously I am not going to move to my left so that he may pass on the wrong side. However, he makes no sign of stopping, so when he is one inch from me, I stop walking and put my arm across my chest, palm out, so that he will not dent my very person.

At this, he does in fact go around me, and I say “Jesus!” in my best 1950s manner.

I should mention that even if I had been inclined to move to my left, I couldn’t have done so readily, as the sidewalk was packed.

I suppose the day is coming when one will have to leap entirely off the sidewalk into the gutter to accommodate the other party no matter what, or risk ending up in a pool of blood. On the other hand, I’ll bet this never happens to Lisa C.; I could admittedly be more yielding.

In any event, I now feel grateful if I can go one block without a fatal walking rage incident. Yay, I’m all the way to the corner and I’m not dead! I almost don’t want to leave the safety of my plush cubicle for my daily stroll anymore.

The other day, I was at Amazon considering which CDs and books I might like to buy with some funds that had been transmitted to me on or around my birthday. “Oh, right, I was thinking of getting this. And this!”

I noticed that with each passing moment of contemplating what was wanted, I felt physically worse. There was a subtle feeling of tightness, maybe queasiness, in my stomach. That was the palpable sensation of dukkha, of grasping, though I will enjoy the books and CDs (Def Leppard, Art Blakey, the Beatles, and KT Tunstall ) very much and of course am grateful to my kind benefactor.