#40 Rumbling Man

So I’m out at the supermarket the other day. I know, it’s a guy thing. I’m heading back to my car with a full load of groceries and my arms are going numb because I’m trying to keep my cart under control on one of those new bumpy walkway things. You know the ones. Either because they think we’re stupid—and might actually wander in the main lane of car traffic—or because some parking lot feng shui specialist convinced them this was all the rage in supermarket external decor, every big box from here to Peoria has suddenly started paving their pedestrian walkways with these giant bumpy slabs of faux-flagstone. They kind of look ceramic but it’s a fair bet it’s some sort of colored and molded cement. Originally they had a more luminescent finish as well, but that proved to be a little too slickery in wetter climates and conked noggin- and twisted ankle-lawsuits started to queue up at the courthouses so now they’re more roughened, less pretty, and less like a cement slip-and-slide.
I guess the idea was that the rumbling of tires on these strips was supposed to warn drivers that they were in an area of pedestrian traffic so they’d better slow down. And at the same time direct pedestrians to these zones for their parking lot safety. Unfortunately, a four foot-wide strip that’s anything less bumpy that a 6-inch tall speed bump doesn’t exactly register on the tires of a vehicle doing thirty-five, dashing to get the space opening up three aisles down. And as far as pedestrians are concerned, concentrating them on this narrow walkway, far from making them safe, actually lines them up as a better target. By the time the car driver feels the rumble the pedestrian is a speed bump.
What the dang things do do, however, is make it extremely annoying to run a shopping cart across them. For the same minor bumps that a car so comfortably ignores, are excruciatingly painful to a poor husband piloting a non-shock absorber-ed inflexible metal basket with solid wheels. See, in case you haven’t noticed, cobblestone streets went out of favor roundabout the middle ages because they were so freaking stupid. The first macadam-paved street was an instant success, to the feet of humans and animals, the butt bones of iron-wheeled wagoneers and the bladders of middle-aged heavy coffee drinkers from Notre Dame to Winchester Cathedral.
So, Shopping Center Developers, if you really need to provide a pedestrian pathway, just paint one on the pavement for gosh sake. A little diamond lane thing for us weary walkers. Cause once I finally do get to my car, I’m sick an tired of popping open a Pepsi and having it spray all over the dang place cause it spent the last five minutes being all shook up on your lovely lumpy lane. Not to mention the pre-scrambled milky eggs I crack open later on when I’m whipping up a quiche for my wife. See, I figure I’d much rather risk wrenching my neck dodging an occasional bad driver than getting a guaranteed carpal tunnel flare-up pushing a shopping cart. Though those pile-driver forearms do look kind of manly.
America, ya gotta love it.