originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago

... from restaurant suggestions and theater recommendations for a good old-fashioned rant at a stranger online instead of yelling at them on the street because it's not worth getting into a fight over. Also, I quote and use strong language.

Last night my friend Dan gave Erica and I a ride home from a rehearsal in his big ol' SUV. He dropped us off at the corner and while Erica was getting her bags out of the passenger side of the car, a man came walking along, stopped when he realized that he couldn't fit between the car door and the parked cars on the right side of the SUV, sort of doubled-back and came around the left side of the car and muttered half-under-his-breath as he walked past me, "...stop in the middle of the fucking street..."

I felt just a little bad that we had inconvenienced him... until it struck me that he was walking in the street! "That's what the fucking sidewalk is for!" I wanted to shout at him, "It's very unusual for a car to block your way when you walk on the sidewalk!"

But then I thought about becoming a statistic on one of Lauren's crime maps -- "Man stabbed for suggesting that imbecile walk on sidewalk" -- and contented myself with staring pointedly at the back of his head as he turned the corner and continued walking down the middle of the (fucking) street.