You've Been Served!

Memo

To: Crazy Spooky Bus Driver, et. al. (see below for full description of the collective Defendant named herein)

From: Law-abiding and Increasingly Pissed Off Bike Commuter Girl

Re: The Daily Minor Indignities and Occasional Life Threatening Situations to Which You, the named Defendant, Subject Me, the Soon-to-Be Very Wealthy Plaintiff.

Dear Sirs and Madam (and buh-LEEVE me, I am using those terms loosely and with no small amount of sarcasm):

By accepting receipt of this memo, you are implicitly accepting service of notice of my intention to sue your ass all the way to Timbuktu and back when—not if, but when—you cause me, the aforementioned Law-Abiding and Increasingly Pissed Off Bike Commuter Girl (heretofore named in this memo as She Who Shall Retire Early), grievous bodily damage.

This class of defendants, enumerated below, shall henceforth and forthwith be known collectively as Possessors of Insufficient Social Skills or Fundamental Friendliness, Dumb Rude Insensitive Very Evil Revolting Shits (PISS OFF DRIVERS). This godless clique includes:

• Crazy Spooky Bus Drivers Who Misuse Their Turn Signals, Implying Intention To Change Lanes When They Totally Are Going To Cruise Up the Left Hand Lane for Miles;

• Taxi Drivers Who Swoop In and Out of The Left Lane Like So Many Crows Competing for Road Kill to Pick up a Fare;

• Empty-headed Blonde Georgetown Students Chewing Gum, Tossing Their Hair and Trying (Unsuccessfully) to Parallel Park their Daddies’ Lexus SUVs;

• Self-absorbed Lobbyists Who Double Park then Throw their Doors Open Regardless of Traffic While Talking on their Phones In Front of Pricey Restaurants;

• Lunatic Pedestrians Jaywalking and Texting Simultaneously;

• Tourists Who are Soooooo Clueless that Bicyclists on the Path Are Compelled to Shout “On your left. Your other left. No the other side. OK, tell you what: you pick a side and I’ll adapt;

• Runners (and I use that term generously as your pace qualifies you mostly to be called “Amblers”) Who Listen to Music Too Loudly To Hear a Bike Commuter Bell As You Meander in the Middle of the Path.

Note bene, this list is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather embodies the general kind of person who I intend to sue the shit out of someday.

As exhibit A, a photo of me doing a pinky swear, so clearly demonstrates, I am a law-abiding bike commuter who never* runs red lights, rides the wrong way up a one way street or jumps onto the sidewalk. And as numerous character witnesses shall attest (hi, Mom!), I am typically too out of breath, too uninterested in reaching my destination and, most importantly, too fond of having the moral high-ground to violate posted speed limits on bike paths.

You, the members of PISS OFF DRIVERS, on the other hand, routinely run red lights under the misapprehension that the “Five Second Rule” is applicable in this context, speed up unpredictably under the misguided belief that getting to the next traffic jam just four nanoseconds earlier somehow enriches your quality of life, and step suddenly off the curb somehow thinking that it isn’t going to hurt like hell when I run you down on my bike (did you fail physics, or what?).

Ergo you are running the distinct risk of my taking every penny you’ve got someday since, ipso facto, you are not engaged in the give-and-take, ebb-and-flow, social contract that we call “traffic” and are therefore liable for all and any injuries on my part, including post traumatic stress disorder, unsightly bruising and the occasional broken fingernail.

Sincerely,

A Blameless Bicyclist

*In this context, “never” is a term of art rather than an absolute calculation.