Cycling, it’s all the (Road) Rage!
Stay in Your Lane, of Footscray writes:
Dear Westie, I’m a cyclist and I regularly ride the shared bike path along the river in Footscray to and from work, and for fun. Or at least I used to.
I’ve had to stop doing so recently, because of the endless walkers, should I say meanderers, their children and dogs who don’t understand the meaning of ‘shared pathway’ and who can’t seem to walk in a straight line, or at least between the lines.
Last week, I almost flattened a woman and her child who had stopped, mid-path, to look at something (Lord knows what) in the river. I had to brake in a hurry, I slid off the path and nearly fell down the embankment into the river. At least that would have given them something interesting to gawk at.
What can we do to ensure pedestrians stay in their lane before someone gets seriously hurt?
Dear SIYL, You don’t state your age, or your gender, but I suspect like me, you’re a MAMIL (Middle Aged Male in Lycra) or maybe you’re a MAFIL (replace Male with Female) or maybe you’re a MARNSIL (replace Female with Rather Not say). Whichever option suits, I suspect that, even if you may not have one you are one: a nob.
Like you, I love to ride. Being a MAMIL is the only thing that stops me from becoming OFFAL (Old Fashioned Fat and Lazy). Sans wheels, when it comes to exercise routines, I become a SNOT BLOCK (Sunday? No. OK, Tuesday? Brunch Later? Oh, Cornflake Krispies!) Without my bike I’m just another COUCH POTATO (OK, that’s not an acronym it’s a lifestyle choice). What I’m trying to say is I get the need to ride, I even get the need for speed, I’m full Tour de Footscray in my head once I get going, but I only get going on the road not on shared pathways.
Why?
Because kids and mums and dads, dogs and walkers of all kinds are unpredictable, slow, and yes, they do drift all over the road like lost sheep. Knowing that, you can’t, in all good conscience, ride like the wind. You have to rein in the MAMIL and let loose your inner NICE PERSON (again, a choice, not an acronym). Sharing is caring, not haring around like Lance Armstrong on even more zip juice than usual.
From last month!
Over the past few weeks, the Dear Westie mailbag has been hopping and bopping to the beat of diners who, like writer-inner-er, ‘Children Should Be Seen, But Not Within a Million Miles Of My Dinner, of Newport’ are tired of fishing other people’s kiddy’s fingers out of their fish fingers when dining out.
Ms A Woman’s Dinner is her Castle, of Flemington reveals that, when dining en masse, she preemptively drowns the food she’s most interested in, in chilli sauce, before offering little nibbles to any and all kids at the table. To mitigate this meanness, and assuage her conscience, she follows this up with free mints (read Mylanta). Nice touch. Never Again of Kensington chipped in about an episode with chips and dips consumed in the presence of snotty kiddies that had her bolting home soon after to sacrifice a large amount of guacamole, avec diced carrots, to the great white water god. But not everyone was so outraged by this. Hard as Nails of Werribee suggested that while eating out with other’s kids is a test of character, and sometimes of sphincter, to not do so would be to miss out on something. Isn’t missing out on something exactly what we’re after, Hard as nails?
We at the Westsider, are very much au fait with the dangers of shared dining with the unwashed (I’m talking about journos here, not kids). And yes, in such situations, and as the old adage says, it is much better to give than to receive. So, make sure your fingers are the first dipped into any shared dish. Give them the gift that keeps on giving (as in the s**ts).
If anything in this column has raised issues for you, or if there’s anything you’d like to get off your chest, write to Dear Westie via editor@thewestsider.com.au
