Ron lives his life in what I lovingly angrily termed "Mozey Mode." Dude has absolutely no desire to move fast. Unless he's behind the wheel of a car, that is, and then suddenly he's a Nascar driver.
For the record, I'm the exact opposite. I do everything else fast. Walking the beach- fast. Walking the block-fast. Walking through Walmart- wait, that's why I don't go to Walmart. But when I'm behind the wheel of a car, it's like my body has an inner cruise control censor that's always set at 5mph above whatever the posted speed limit is. Not that my ways are always the right ways, but in my 35 years of driving I've received a total of 2 speeding tickets, hit 0 deer, and hit exactly 0 pedestrians is all I'm sayin'.
As for him, I lost count of his speeding tickets and he's offed so many deer that I firmly believe he drives through fields instead of on the road. And then there's that 1 pesky pedestrian.
In theory, pedestrians have the right of way. We all know that. But pedestrians need to remember that they don't stand a chance against a mini van driven by a man bringing a pizza home for dinner. Deer should keep that in mind too.
For the sake of protecting everyone's identity, I won't pinpoint details on when or where this pedestrian incident took place, lest anyone start throwing around dramatic phrases like "hit and run." I wasn't there, but as Ron sees it, there was a hit and there was a run, but it's not what ya think.
What you need to know is that he was driving through a small city as a parade was about to begin, when according to Ron, a guy carrying a lawn chair darted out in front of him, his body "made contact" with the hood of our van, but he stayed on his feet.
I'm not defending my husband or downplaying the pedestrian's traumatic experience, but Ron was slowly taking off after the light turned green, so anything resembling rolling across the hood seems a bit dramatic and I'm not overly impressed that he landed on his feet either. Dukes of Hazard guys did it under way worse conditions all the time.
Ron braked and then he and the pedestrian had an angry stare down through the driver's side window, which reminds me of the time in Hilton Head when 16 year old Zac barelyyyy thunked a guy's back tire as he crossed the street on his bike. Zac gave him an 'oops' wave and mouthed the word 'sorry', as is customary when you hit a pedestrian, but that guy stared a super angry face through the window for awhile too. To be fair, I've never been hit by a car, so maybe that's like an unspoken rule or something.
The main difference in the stories where the father and the son both hit pedestrians, is that Zac said he was sorry. Ron just quietly stared the fuming pedestrian down.
For being such a people pleaser, he doesn't seem to mind pissing people off when he's driving. You might recall another time Ron made some people mad behind the wheel the day we accidentally broke a series of laws out on the lake in our boat.
But back to our parade pedestrian. Caymen was in the passenger seat holding the pizzas and she assures me that Ron was not being a distracted driver, neither by phone nor by pizza. According to her, the guy darted. Sometimes there's just no defense against darting.
I asked her if he said anything at all to the guy and she answered, "Nope. They just stared at each other for a long time and then he flipped us off, called daddy an asshole, and punched our van. Then he picked up his lawn chair and ran off."
Good lord. Surely this was witnessed by others at the parade, so I asked Ron if that would be considered a hit and run in the eyes of the law. He said, "It should be, but I let it slide."
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