I am, for the most part, a law-abiding citizen. I don’t knock over liquor stores, don’t carry concealed weapons, and rarely roll my stops – even when making a right-hand turn. I’ve never been pulled over for speeding. The only time I was ever actually inside a police car was when a very nice officer escorted Beloved and I home from the site of an accident Beloved had making an ill-advised turn into oncoming traffic. I am, in short, a good girl.
There is, however, one set of laws I will flagrantly flout. Not only will I break them from necessity, but I will break them for the sheer thrill of it. I am incorrigible.
My name is DaniGirl, and I am an inveterate jaywalker.
Even though the nearest intersection may be mere metres away, I will cross the street in the middle of the block. I will cross against the light. I will dodge moving vehicles, standing on the yellow line in the middle of the road, waiting for a break in traffic. I’m sure that I commit some sort of jaywalking offense at least a dozen times in the course of an average day. One very, very stupid day back in my ill-informed youth, I crossed (Mom, look away please) twelve lanes of highway 401 through Toronto.
I find it somewhere between quaint and annoying that people actually stop when the little white walking dude disappears and the red hand starts to flash. Even when no cars are coming! It never fails to perplex me, and more than once I have nearly crashed full speed into the back of someone who stops at the curb, so intent am I on crossing at my own leisure.
Jaywalking as a habit is so deeply ingrained into my psyche, I have to remind myself to obey the rules of the road when the boys are with me. Oh, the agony of walking aaaallllll the way down to the corner to cross the street on the way to the park, when we could just nip straight across from the end of the driveway. It’s excruciating.
What a rebel I am, eh? Life on the edge, I tell ya! So, what about you? What laws do you see as “optional”?
Today is (thank goodness!) the last day to vote on the Weblog Awards. You can click through to vote (hint, hint) or if you’re on the main page, scroll down to the poll embedded in yesterday’s post. Polls close at 5 pm EST.
I am definitely guilty of being a rolling stopper!! I can’t help it. Stop signs, to me, are optional.
P.S. I’ve been voting every day 🙂
Dal
You know what? The French and the Italians tend to jaywalk. Guess who tends to wait patiently for the green man, even on a deserted side street at 3 am. The Swiss. Not that there’s anything wrong with the Swiss, but who would you rather be like?
I absolutely jaywalk all the time, except on my bike, since I’m a car magnet even when I have the right of way on a cross-walk!
And I keep forgetting to vote, but I will tonight, I promise!
I did a post not that long ago — Lord, don’t go looking for it, please — about how I break the law in little ways. The biggest nowadays is taking the dog down to the unused open field where NO DOGS are allowed and running her OFF LEASH. Two laws broken in one. But I do clean up after her, and I never let her bother the rare fellow human who walks by sans a dog.
Jaywalkers unite!
YOU JAYWALKED THE 401 IN TORONTO?????!!!!!!!! I don’t even know how to comment on that.
When I am with my children, I am Law-Abiding Mommy. Alone, I transform into my secret identity: Jay Walk Girl (see my cape?).
I am willing to break any law that I think is stupid. And that’s too many to list ….
There is one particular very quiet intersection (I stress quiet) that we use every morning when I send my 3yr old Caitlin to my inlaws before work. It’s a T-intersection, where I am the one coming up to turn right.
When there are no cars coming, I sometimes just go before my lights turn green. I mean, I have a clear view of both sides of the intersection [protest tone!]
Caitlin already knows her reds from her greens. I dread the day when she actually notices & questions me.