The Red Coat is Coming

My morning run is a simple loop. There’s not much traffic, with the exception of one small stretch of busy road. I’m a street runner because I like the asphalt surface, not because I harbor a secret death wish.

Picture this: last week, early morning, and the skies have begun to brighten. I am almost home when I get to the aforementioned busy road for a short block before turning down the street my house is on.

A gray-haired woman in a red coat is walking directly toward me. To be fair, she is following pedestrian safety protocol, facing traffic. I am running with my back to traffic because I am so close to my home street. Also, there’s a blind curve on the other side of the road, so crossing would actually make me less safe.

I am painfully aware that even as I rationalize, I am wrong. Accordingly, I give red coat ample berth, running extravagantly around her, almost in the center of the street. I say hello, smile. She ignores me.

Three days later our paths cross again. This time, as I approach, I grin, pointing to the turn just over her shoulder that I am about to take. “This is my street,” I say. She huffs and keeps walking.

Later, it occurs to me that “This is my street” minus context and visuals sounds crazy. I must explain to red coat what I meant, and the very next day I get my chance. Busy street, our paths cross, and I stop. 

“I just wanted to explain that when I said “this is my street” what I meant is that I turn down the next corner and that’s why I don’t cross street. I wasn’t trying to tell you I own the street.”

“I knew what you meant,” she says, and instead of the part I am expecting, where she smiles and we laugh and introduce ourselves, she keeps walking.

Awkward, yes, and, to be honest, a little humiliating, but if she thinks she’s done with me, she’s got another thing coming. Once I would have been happy with a friendly nod of the head, but my plan now is a campaign of perkiness that will make her wish she’d never been born, or at the very least, walked down my street.