Look both ways!

Now, I don't mean to say all Colorado people are chew on a shoe crazy. But there are more insane pedestrians in this city than I've ever seen anywhere - and I'm counting San Francisco AND Ft. Lauderdale which have between them a insane number of yoo hoo's on the street. It's not to say that there are a lot of insane or mentally ill residents, I mean literally people on the streets. Pedestrians in this fair city seem to ignore the rules of traffic and seem to have no qualms about walking out into oncoming cars. I wonder if it's that perhaps Denverites are more exact, more calculating in their pathways. It's not enough for them to take patterns at right-angle intersections, they need to go directly to their destination; moving vehicles be damned. Perhaps the high altitude skews the brain's natural sense of cartography. This evening on my drive home I saw a group of people, three adults to be exact, cross six lanes of traffic TWICE. Together they ran, undaunted between cars, MOVING CARS and then back again.

At one point, one of the men started to bark at people in their cars. He was quite an intimidating figure - tattoos, shaved head, crazy hollow eyes and dirty overalls complimented by a dingy beater tank. Not alone in his journey, he was accompanied by a whooping girl wearing short short cut-off's and yellow, bleached hair and another companion running with a full, gas station soda. While I found the situation less than ideal after a long day at work - I was most amused by the reaction of the yuppie in the Honda in front of me. As the barking man passed his car he did the stare-ahead, pretend nothing is happening look. Once Barker had passed, Yuppie stared out the driver's side window with a death glare. The glare of man defending his territory, a primeval, instinctive glare bore down on the back of the unknowing barker as crossed three more lanes and was on his way. Fierce, burning stare with the questioning look so obvious on his face: Do I call the police? Do I do something? How can I not?!? This is MY street, I'm the one in a Honda! Becoming more and more simplistic. Turning as if to find something on the passenger's seat, perhaps in his attache. Where's my club? Man in oxford tough!

It was amazing, it was so instinctive - but alas, fleeting. I guess that rolled-up car windows block both UV rays and yuppie stare downs.