Keep Right Except To Pass meets Entitled Clueless Karen on the Workout Trails

The funny thing about this was I was originally writing this as a lead-in to a joke on the weekend.  It ended up being a piece about the park.  I did leave the joke in at the end, it's not a long one.



As the world is slowly picking itself up and getting back to normal, so am I.

I was recently back out at the park skating a slow workout.  After all, wiping out and ending up in an ER in the best of times is a bad thing no matter what things are like. 

That aerobic burn is a great thing, puts me in a good mood for the next couple days with a great runner's high.

The problem is that while I am a big guy, the trail is cramped in corners. 

 

Oh, and the culture of entitlement has hit outdoor exercising just like it has everywhere else.  You know, that mindset of the rules are for other people?

Basically, if you are walking three across and filling the entire multipurpose trail, I hate you.  

Keep right except to pass used to be posted on all the highways when I lived in New Jersey. 

I have been gone for almost 15 years, but I bet you could still find one of those signs if you tried hard enough.

Here I was near the end of the workout.  I wasn't particularly moving all that fast.  I "drive" the trails, since I know them so well.   Avoid the divot at the 4 mile marker.  Hit the bench at the 3.5 mile marker next time past for a water stop.  Make sure you step over the rough pavement when you merge at 3 mile marker.  Surf the off shore wind if you're going West.

That kind of thing.

Coming into a blind curve, I dropped the speed down to a trot and rolled around the corner. 

Just down the trail was a pair of gym bunny types.  I'm fine with them, in their place, but if you are putting your ... "bulk" across the trail, the etiquette everywhere I have ever seen is to announce your presence, keep to the right, and be aware of your surroundings.

In the case of Pompano Airpark, it is Literally Posted On Signs.  In fact, it was posted right where this all happened in full view.

Slower Traffic Keep Right.  They were across the trail with a small gap to the left.  Time for a snap executive decision.

I come around the corner and say, loudly "On Yer Left!" since they were on the wrong part of the trail.

One Clueless Karen says to the other Clueless Karen "Oh!  We have to move" and grabs the other by the elbow.

... and pushes her into my traffic lane.

Mind you at under 100 KG and 193 CM plus skates and helmet I look like a wall moving along.  All in "High Vis" colors and sweat.

I hear a squeak from Clueless Karen as I bellow "NO!  KEEP RIGHT! OFF THE TRAIL!"

My brakes shriek in protest as I slow to a walk.

At that particular spot, the trail is bordered by a metal cyclone fence.  The other side of the asphalt that is about the width of a broad sidewalk there is a hedge.  Chock full of semi sharp edges.  Pointy bits left over from when the rather good landscaping crew came through and trimmed last Monday.

I see a pile of Neon Fabrics and semi-overweight Karen fall into the hedge with a louder "OUCH!".

I suspect a lesson was learned, I never saw those particular people back.

Oh, Well, Shrug. 

I chuckled to myself once I calmed down and thought about this story.


A man was driving home from work when he got a call from his wife...

“Be careful, honey,” she said. “I saw on the news that there’s some idiot going the wrong way on the highway that you take to get home.”

The man was confused.

“What do you mean?” he said. “There isn’t one person going the wrong way, there are hundreds of them!”