Sometimes themes assert themselves into your day. Today's theme was "things with wheels." It started in the park, where I observed an older man in a wheelchair being scolded by a scowling, red-faced younger man, who was shaking his finger in the old guy's face. Maybe the wheelchair guy intentionally ran over the younger man's foot. Perhaps this simmering tension between them had been brewing all morning, and finally exploded there in the park. Unfortunate, because any passersby would immediately think poorly of the younger man. This is unfair of course, the wheelchair man could be a total asshole for all anybody knows, but the natural assumption is that disabled people are beautiful souls whom destiny has thwarted, but whose deep inner strength, an inspiration to us all, does not allow them to sit at home and feel sorry for themselves, waiting for hot meals to be delivered by sullen volunteers, no, they go to the park like anyone else, and get publicly upbraided by able-bodied younger people for their trouble.
As I exited the park on this unseasonably muggy day, I saw an elderly man on a rickety black bicycle. He was really old, probably at least 75. The bicycle tended to move in a woozily serpentine fashion, but he was basically moving forward, albeit slowly. I thought, I hope when I'm that age I have the moxie to ride my bicycle on an uncomfortably hot day like today. Then it occurred to me that I don't even have such moxie now, so it's ludicrous to imagine myself having it when I'm geriatric. Shame made my face tingle.
Just then another bicycle went by, a tandem model, except that this one was an adult/child hybrid. The mother pedaled along in front, and the kid rode in back. I don't think the kid's pedals actually did anything, but I guess they want the child to feel it's participating somehow. They wore matching yellow helmets and the mother seemed a little pleased with herself, demonstrating this novel way she'd discovered to spend quality time with her child. Naturally I imagined them suffering a terrible accident, the child orphaned and taken in by a poor family without novelty bicycles.
In an uncanny instance of circumstantial oneupmanship, a few minutes later I had to step aside to allow an unusual spectacle to pass me coming the other way. A woman running, pushing a special baby stroller, one with two large wheels and one smaller wheel in front. Inside was a sporting toddler wearing a tiny helmet. Leashes tied to each of the large handles of this sportstroller were attached to nearly identical dogs who ran alongside the stroller. The jogging woman inexplicably wore mirrored sunglasses. It was like a yuppie Iditarod. This woman was clearly intent on getting the most out of this time outdoors. I was surprised she wasn't talking on the phone as well, or somehow preparing a nutritious and tasty lunch as she ran, or doing her taxes. I felt like an underachieving chump. What was I thinking, simply walking? How unimaginative of me.