Device for Safe Passage

If you’re a fast walker, like I am, and you spend time in the city, you’d be forgiven for thinking that every bastard out there is intentionally walking at about one quarter the normal walking pace while slowly weaving from one side of the footpath to the other in an effort to make you enact some terrible violence against them. Tourists are the worst. A new phenomenon this year in Dublin is groups of 30+ tourists all wandering vaguely around the city, while still trying to maintain some kind of group structure. Thirty people! I’m not kidding. All walking down the same footpath which is only about five feet wide. And often wearing identical t-shirts, for some reason.

Anyway, I have devised a wonderful strategy for use when you get caught behind the slow weaver which, if performed correctly, should result you being able to pass by on one side without either of you getting seriously injured.

The first step in the road to controlling your murderous rage when you find yourself in this situation is to realise that the object of your irritation does not actually know that you are there. If they knew the ire that their behaviour were causing, do you think that they would not move? This is actually they key to applying my wonderful device for safe passage(DSP).

Here it is. When you find yourself approaching someone from behind(ahem), chose a side to pass. I know, I know, it’s hard to pick a side to pass on when they’re inexplicabley weaving across the pavement like that. Just pick one. It doesn’t even have to be particularly contingent on their current position. Don’t try to change sides at the last minute. That can only end in disaster. When you get to within roughly three feet of the protagonist (yes, they’re the protagonist), just run your shoe along the ground as you step. It makes a noise like this: Scchhhhhth. 8 times out of 10, the person who has not, until this moment, realised that you are there, will almost subconsciously drift away from the sound leaving you free to power through the gap. I know, it sounds stupidly simple, but I can’t tell you how much of a difference it’s made to my daily walking.

There are a couple of notable exceptions upon whom this method will never work. Those wearing earphones rarely hear you. Then again, those wearing earphones are generally fast walkers. I think it has something to do with the music, but that’s a whole article in itself. If you do find yourself behind a slow, earphone-wearing pedestrian, try flicking them gently in the ear to alert them to your presence.

The other big exception is what’s commonly known as the ignorant bastard. He knows that you’re there. He just doesn’t feel like moving. In this situation there’s really nothing you can do unless you want to stoop to his level. Employ the elbow, as it were. Which I have no moral problem with. I just don’t like getting hit.