Why my mom doesn't like it that I live in the big city

Today, for the first time, I was menaced with a gun. It was hours ago, but I'm still kind of jittery.

It happened at one of my least favorite kinds of traffic nightmares in the city, where an access road that feeds onto an interstate intersects with the interstate exit less than 100 yards from a stoplight where, if you're on the access road and you need to turn left, you have to get across several lanes in a very short time, and it's particularly trying during rush hour.

I let a couple of slightly hysterical drivers getting off the interstate go ahead of me to get over to the right lane, which left me with even less space to get over to the left, so I was going to go for it when I saw a motorcycle flying up the exit ramp. He nearly ran into me, but we avoided a collision because I was paying attention and God was watching over me (and if there are guardian angels, I really hope mine gets some sort of hazard bonus or a lot of vacation time).

I obligingly stopped, so he could get over, since he seemed in much more of a hurry than I was, and he was kind of wild and scary looking with his longish, matted ginger, helmet-less hair blown all over the place. He pulled his motorcycle to within inches of my left front bumper, blocking my exit, and pulled back his vest slowly, deliberately, and a tad theatrically to show me that he had a gun and he was not afraid to use it.

We sat like this for several moments while he glared at me and basked in whatever feeling of power it gave him to threaten a lone woman in a car with a gun for causing him to pay attention and slow down a bit before he remembered that he had somewhere to be in a hurry and pulled away.  I was not particularly comforted by the fact that there was a police station three blocks away. Obviously that fact didn't bother him.

It was kind of scary. I thank God it wasn't any worse.

I'm afraid I may be even less favorably inclined towards motorcyclists now. My apologies to those of you who drive sanely and are law-abiding citizens who don't threaten people with guns.

On a more positive note, the great book migration is mostly over, and we should once again be back to regularly scheduled blog posting here every Tuesday and Saturday.