I should have gone to bed early on New Year's Eve to prepare for a long first-of-the-year bike ride instead of staying up late to watch the Twilight Zone marathon.
I probably wouldn't have been so freaked out on a ride later in the week.
I'm waiting at a light while bicycling home through Renton when I see a bike commuter chugging along on the sidewalk going against traffic.
Red backpack, yellow jacket, riding a mountain bike. That's no place to ride your bike, I'm thinking, as he crosses a sidestreet on a crosswalk. Should I butt in?
I wait for the light to change and take off. I pass him in a block and a half, don't say anything (I've got my own problems negotiating a Metro bus), make my right turn, and don't think anymore about it.
Four miles later on Lake Washington Boulevard I see a cyclist way ahead riding against traffic in the bike lane. Red backpack. Yellow jacket. Mountain bike.
I hadn't stopped. How did he get ahead of me again? Did he take a more direct route?
I realize I'm asking questions like the ones Inger Stevens first asked in Twilight Zone's “The Hitchhiker” 46 years ago. I vaguely remember watching it as a kid, and it still gave me goosebumps when I watched it the other night.
The story goes that the Stevens character is driving to California, she passes a hitchhiker, and continues seeing him at the side of the road on the way West. She gets all wiggy about it, calls her mom, who can't come to the phone because she's all distressed about the death of her daughter in a traffic accident. That's when Inger realizes this is no ordinary hitchhiker.
I pass the bike commuter again, but he doesn't say, “I believe you're going my way.” And I don't see him again, maybe because I have a little more energy pedaling uphill to my neighborhood. I wanted to make sure there wasn't a detour … through the Twilight Zone.
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