Traffic Cop

I guess the stress has made me overly emotional lately. I've started to become a vigilante.

In front of Aiden's school there's a very busy intersection that the kids have to cross. In the morning the "Green Moms" guard the crosswalks, but in the afternoon there aren't any guards. The immediate area has three schools very close together (elementary, middle, and high school) so you'd think that drivers would be careful, but they are not. I have already found myself shaking my fist and yelling at people for being careless in the streets around that area. Anyway, yesterday I waiting on the other side of the street (across from the school) as I always do, and watched the crosswalk light turn green and two girls proceed to cross. Then I saw a man, completely oblivious, driving through the intersection -- slowly, but without looking at all. I threw myself in front of the car and he stopped, startled. I started waving my arms, pointing to the two girls and the school. He held up his hand, like "sorry, my bad," but I just swatted my hand at him in disgust and stomped away. There were a few other nannys and moms on the sidewalk, so when I came back later with Aiden some of the kids were saying, "Aiden's mom, you were really angry, huh!" Stuff like that spreads fast.

Then today, I was crossing the street with Max and there was a series of cars parked on the side of the road, and a bunch of people campaigning for one of the candidates (#2, I forgot his name). (We have elections next week, and the candidates line up and blast all sorts of noisy messages all over the place.) I was grumbling to myself because they parked their cars ILLEGALLY on the side of the road, in an area where people often thoughtlessly park, causing all sorts of traffic problems in our already congested area, and making it difficult to walk safely. So I went up to the group of tee-shirted supporters and said, "Why is a law-maker parking ILLEGALLY?" One woman just smiled and said, "I understand." But I was mad, so I went on. "Do you understand that you're making it very difficult for all these people over here [gesturing to all the cars trying to enter that street] by parking there? Do you understand how dangerous that is? This kind of thing makes me angry, really really angry!" She just kept nodding and smiling (a bit nervously) and saying, "I understand, I understand," while backing away from me. I huffed away.

I'm going to start slashing tires next.