Just Dumb

The fog was thick at around 5 am Monday morning as I drove to the bus stop. I didn’t go any faster than 35 miles per hour on Highway 33 because, as Yukon Cornelius says, “that fog’s as thick as peanut butter.”

I have to go up the hill on south Second East to get to the bus stop. The LDS temple, ordinarily a beacon, could not be seen through the fog until I was past the Hinckley Building on the BYU-Idaho campus, a scant ¼ mile north of the temple.

Then I saw him.

Not the Angel Moroni atop the temple steeple, but some black-clad gink walking in the middle of the northbound traffic lane – yes, ladies and gentlemen, with his back to traffic – as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

I can’t assume, of course, that this individual was a BYU-Idaho student. I can assume, however, that he/she just didn’t want to walk on the nice, wide sidewalk, just six or eight feet to the right, rather than walking down the middle of a black street while wearing black clothing in the middle of a rather dense fog. A dense fog that, I might add, scatters light and scatters sound, so any hope that the pedestrian had of hearing or seeing traffic coming his way would be greatly reduced, while at the same time his unexpected location in the street, while wearing black clothing on a densely foggy morning, reduced his or her chances of being seen until it was too late.

Maybe this individual was looking to become a speed bump. I’m not sure. But his or her choice of clothing and walking location Monday morning certainly was, in two words, just dumb.