I don't even mean in a "Ayy I'm walking here" kind of way. Today I was getting my airbags replaced for a couple hours so I was just walking around (Nowhere to go to because it was one of those near-the-highway places with nothing but department stores and car dealerships, but that's a different discussion.) Literally, it seemed like the entire layout of the area was saying "Fuck you, drive around" Like, there was barely even any sidewalks, which you'd think would be the bare minimum but nope.

The one place worth going to was this supremely out of place fountain, but to get there I had to do several different crossings of a very busy street, with nothing to help but those damn buttons you're supposed to push to, I think, make a red light (they didn't work, whoopity-do) and one crossing didn't even have that. Eventually I decided "Screw it", since there was no "official" crossing, so I just crossed the rest of the way from one of those tiny concrete islands. I didn't get run over, of course, but now I think about how comparatively easy it was for me, being able to walk on my feet; I can't even imagine how much worse it is in, say, a wheelchair. I guess America hates anyone not driving.

Suffice to say that the whole time I was thinking of this painting

    • gcc [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Ugh I feel you. I worked at a place where the nearest bus stop was on the shoulder of the highway about a mile down, and the side of the highway was thorny bushes and then a ditch, so you had to walk in the shoulder. I hated it so much that I started walking half an hour to another bus route with a sidewalk, even though it was a more roundabout route and added 40 minutes to my commute. Shit sucked.