So I'm taking a walk in my neighborhood earlier this evening and — BAM! — I get sideswiped by a guy on a bicycle. He's a young guy, maybe in his twenties, wearing a helmet and the kind of togs I associate with competitive racing…only there's no race, nor is it the kind of area where they'd have a bicycle race. People are trying to walk there.
The guy's zooming down the sidewalk in a business area, going as fast as he can go, not stopping for anything — not cross-traffic, not stop lights. I don't hear him coming up behind me. One second, I'm walking along. The next, he slams into my left side, almost knocking me to the sidewalk, but keeps on going. Way down the street, he yells, "Sor-ry" and he says it in two long syllables, the way you say it when your parents force you to apologize for something you don't want to be bothered apologizing about. And as he says it, he's zipping across a street, ignoring a "Don't Walk" sign, forcing a motorist to put on the brakes and lay rubber. The guy's just bicycling as fast as humanly possible, expecting the rest of the world to get out of his way.
I suffer no specific injury but my whole body aches from the shock. The pains had better go away by tomorrow morning, 'cause I have things to do. I have to finish an article. I have to go to the market. And on the way to the market, I have to run over a bicycle rider. I hope I get the right one…but if I don't, I'll just yell, "Sor-ry!"