Tuesday, August 26, 2008

I am Batman

She sat at a stop light, a mild mannered math-er headed out after a hard day of adding and subtracting. The rain slid down the blue hood of her old car like cold tears. On the radio the tinny voice of some dame bemoaned the state of the world. Just another gray day in a gray city. A familiar crunch distracted the math-er from her musings. A car had turned straight into the car behind her. She stared into her rear view mirror and sighed, weighing her options and wondering if everything was alright. Something told her it wasn't.

The light turned green. Following her intuition, she pulled through the intersection and into the lot across the street. She watched the offending vehicle, a luxury model, pull into a joint next to the accident. The driver got out of the car and slid her hands along her vehicle. She was young. Too young to know any better.

She looked both ways and legged it back to her car and took off.

Something in the math-er snapped. Her manner became decidedly un-mild and she gave chase, her large blue vehicle gliding along behind the speeding sports car. The math-er had had enough. Enough of people acting like assholes. Enough of assholes getting away with it. Enough of nice people sitting on the side of the road in their shitty smashed up domestic cars wondering why these things happen. And why they always happen to them.

The math-er knew why. Because some people think that they are above the law. Some people think that they are better than other people. They are wrong, thought the math-er, her jaw clenched with gritty determination.

The young woman was driving pretty fast, and the math-er almost lost sight of her. She saw a glint take a speedy right and followed it on a hunch. She thought of the battered old American car sitting in the road back at the intersection and gunned it. Ahead of her she saw the car. And ahead of it a 4-way stop. The math-er knew she had the young woman cornered. As she pulled up behind the car, the math-er wrote the license number on her hand. She watched as the young woman turned down a dead end. But the math-er had all she needed.

She hurried back to the scene of the crime and flagged down a police officer. The police praised her and took down her detailed statement. They called her a hero. The math-er was flattered, she preened but demurred, Aw shucks, just doing the right thing.

As the math-er walked back to her American relic the driver of the mutilated old car pressed her hands together in a gesture of thanks. The math-er turned and smiled. She gave the driver thumbs up.

Not just another day. A new day.

A new day in the gray city.

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And that is why I didn't make it to your Pseudo-Bachelorette Party, Mon. My secret life as a crime fighter got in the way (again).

Seriously.

PS- This is my 1,000th post. Good job on not quitting, self. You should eat a cupcake tonight in celebration.

I was going to eat one anyway, but now I have an excuse!