August 2007

Maybe it isn’t college students who are dumb. Maybe it’s everyone in this town. I’ve seen 4 car accidents in 24 hours. Someone followed the neighbor home and cursed her out for running a red light or turning on a red light or something. People are running across highways (not just the incident yesterday, there were more today). And there was a cat fight at Walmart this evening.

TW and I were at Walmart searching for a certain cupcake topper we need for a certain someone who is having a big day on Friday. We thought we could easily find this at Walmart so we ran in there after work. (well actually we ran in there after we ran into Backyard Burger after work)

We were talking about students being back and promoting fighting in a Top 5 party school town when this young woman starts screaming BITCH as we walk past. No, I didn’t know her and she wasn’t talking to me. (Some of you were sure she was talking to me, you can admit it.) She was with another young woman and I thought they were playing around, name calling the way teens and young adults do. All of a sudden the chick takes off running down the aisle, screaming BITCH over and over again. TW and I were still walking and we glance down the aisle, both of us really thinking teens are idiots and we see they really ARE idiots. They are beating the hell out of each other. And everyone is standing there watching.

TW and I just kept on walking, shaking our heads. We glanced down the next aisle and see a very shell shocked older woman, a Walmart employee, obviously trying to decide what to do with these girls. TW and I just kept on walking, shaking our heads some more.

As we were leaving, not having found the item we were sure any Walmart would have, we saw one of the young women bleeding all over the women’s clothing while a couple of store employees tried to patch her up.

Insanity. Who was it that decided Gainesville is the number one place to live in the US? Have they actually visited this town?

I took Michelle to get her books for this semester and then we ran over to Burrito Brothers to grab her paycheck. Students are back so of course there was no parking in the tiny little lot, I squeezed into half of a space on 14th and sat with the car running. Michelle came out quickly and I pulled out onto 14th, made a right into pretty heavy mid-day traffic onto University.

“Students are back.” I said. The traffic was murder and there were kids all over the place. You have to be pretty mindful of what they’re doing because you never know when they are going to decide they need to be on the other side of University Ave (a very busy 4 lane road).

So Michelle and I were talking about how many hours she had worked last week. I moved to the left lane as soon as I had a chance and was going between 30 and 35, did I mention the traffic was heavy?

I’m approaching a green light when out of the corner of my left eye I see some flash of movement.

“What the….” BAM. I instinctively put on my breaks and watched a college student (male) get hit by a small silver car.

He decided he could run across four lanes of traffic, cars going 30-40 miles per hour would of course slam on their brakes as he darted across the street. And they did, but he still got hit. And then tried to get back up and keep running. Which is why when Michelle said “Mom, the light’s green.” I ignored her and watched just in case he decided to keep on running.

What in the hell is wrong with these kids. I know, I rant about this every year, but it’s getting worse. Crossing against not only the crosswalk light but the traffic light. Crossing University wherever it suits them to cross. U-turns at the drop of a hat in areas where a u-turn is less than safe. I just don’t get it.

Take this young man for instance. Did he go home, or to whatever bar he was obviously headed to, and think about what would have happened if his parents had gotten a call on the first week back to school saying “your son was hit by a car”…. or did he go back to his room or to Burrito Brothers for a late lunch and wonder how the driver of that car would have felt if he had not been able to hit his brakes quickly enough to prevent serious injury – or if the cars behind it would not have been able to stop, causing a chain reaction that certainly would have caused him more injury.

Do 20 somethings stop to think about anything at all? I’m beginning to doubt it.

To the person driving the silver car – good job hitting your brakes and avoiding what could have been a very serious injury to this kid. I hope to goodness he apologized and he thanked you for paying attention.