The footpath is a warzone, littered with various walkers who enrage my soul.
First, there’s the person in front of you who meanders from left to right (stick to a fucking side, Gina). Then there’s the group of 2 or 3 who take up the entire span of the footpath. There’s also that person who, peak rush hour, just blatantly stops right in front of you. Ghastly.
Above all else, though, a sinister presence dominates the footpath – the true satans of the sidewalk, growing in numbers. I’m talking about slow walkers.
Encountering a slow walker elicits the most fervent feelings of hatred in my usually dormant and harmonious soul.
See, I am a fast walker. I first became aware of my prodigious speed when, at the age of 10, a school friend said they saw me blazing down one of the main streets in my hometown, overtaking cars in the process, despite the fact that I thought I was strolling at a leisurely pace. It was at that very moment, I looked myself in the mirror and realised I was born to walk fast. I never looked back.
There are many reasons why I’m a fast walker. I’m a stress-head, for one. I’m also gay (cue tweets about gays being fast walkers):
But the main reason why I’m a fast walker revolves around my theory that, when you’re walking, more often than not, it’s to get somewhere… and you’d obviously want to get to that somewhere as quickly as possible, right?
To this day, I simply cannot imagine walking at glacial pace. It stresses me even when I’m walking alongside a naturally slow-walking friend – I try my damndest, but I just can’t seem to teach my legs to move at a slower pace. It’s just not in my DNA to do so. ‘Why be walking here when I could already be at that spot 500 metres in the distance?’ I ask myself. ‘500 metres closer to where I need to be.’
At this point, my dear slow walkers of the world, I want to note that, despite the fact that your slow walking sends me into a K-hole of rage, I don’t hate you. I simply just don’t understand you, and I’m curious about your species.
I mean, don’t you have places to be, and want to be there as quickly as possible? Do you leave the house earlier, to accomodate for your painful walking speed, or do you blissfully accept the fact that you’ll be late? When someone overtakes you and, 5.8 seconds later you see them 500m ahead, don’t you ever think, ‘they’re so far ahead, I want that’?
Long story short, why are you the way that you are?
To loosely paraphrase Miley Cyrus, life’s a climb… but the view is only great if you get to the top fast enough to catch the sunrise.
BRB, in need of rice paper rolls and about to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge between your people to get there.
This article was originally published February 4, 2020.
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