Society is good, and everything is going to be alright

Like most of us, I am a creature of habit: I wear the same pair of pants every day, and when I put them on, I always put the same leg in first. When I order eggs, I order them over easy--no exceptions. Coffee: black. Pigeons: wanly threatened with shoe. Cream: not in coffee. Day in and day out. You get the idea.

Well, the pattern holds up vis-a-vis my bike route to work, as I zip down Mission to 29th, then to Harrison, and on into SOMA: I always travel the same path. And the people I see blurring by in the periphery, themselves being creatures of habit as well, are invariably the same ones each day: the people ambling down the sidewalk on the way to the bus stop, the day laborers hanging out on the corners, the grizzled prostitutes, the folks selling boxes of grizzle.

Little could I have known that on a bright summer morning last week, the spell would be broken as--in what had to be the slowest bike accident in recent history--I serenely hurtled to the ground, tumbling on the cement and lightly scraping my elbow. It was a strange sensation, because I had so much time to think as it was happening. I wasn't falling, so much as being bureaucratically processed by gravity. At one point, I distinctly remember becoming bored with the whole situation and, after futilely casting around for something to read, finally resigning myself to counting the seconds before my body struck pavement.

When the ordeal finally wended its way to a conclusion, and I lay on Harrison St. tangled up with my bike like a mosquito squashed on a paperclip, I found--to my happy astonishment--that the previously static population of my bike route had come alive all around me. First, a biker: "You alright?" Then another: "Need any help?" Then a mom, with baby in sling: "You okay?" Then two dudes who just happened to be chatting by a stoop: "Hey man, you okay? You have to be careful".

Of course, I was fine. But I left the scene of the incident with a newfound feeling of safety and hearthlike warmth. There were people looking out for me; and everything was going to be alright.

Comments

[the carlos]

dude, this post sounds suspiciously H2G2.