That Time a Man Tried to Slowly Murder Me with His Car

One gets a distinct feeling when they are about to be mowed down by a sleep-deprived or, possibly, still sleeping maniac behind the wheel.

It’s an, oh shit, I’m about to be mowed down by a sleep-deprived, or possibly, still sleeping maniac kind of feeling.

With my heart thumping wildly, maintaining creepy eye contact with the man coming straight for me while also frantically trying to calculate which way I should toss my body just in case this lunatic actually did want to run me over with his hatchback, I had the fleeting thought, why the fuck did I decide to walk this morning?

When Jamie and I owned our sandwich shop, I ate a lot of sandwiches. We also baked cream puffs and puff pastry tarts and all sorts of delectables, so, as you can imagine, I was a hefty lady coming up on our second year of owning the business.

I needed to do something about that, so I had the bright idea to start walking to work every morning. Our shop was a good 45-minute hike from our home. Every day, as I huffed and puffed my way through side streets, walking bridges and one very dubious intersection, I wondered why we couldn’t have bought a business that had living quarters above it, like on Bob’s Burgers.

After a few weeks, my body started getting accustomed to the early morning and late evening walks, and I felt myself shedding the extra puff pastry poundage.

Fantastic!

Granted, I’d have to leave my house in the middle of the night to arrive early enough to bake the fresh loaves of bread and pastries, but I was willing to make that sacrifice. I sure as hell wasn’t going to give up cheesy pressed sandwiches, so I had to counterbalance the extra calories somehow.

I met strange characters along the way, but that was okay.

Many people in my city complain about the unhoused or those with substance disorders who walk the streets in the early morning hours. They say a lot of hurtful and, quite frankly, uninformed shit that I’m not going to get into here because it is honestly not worth it.

Back then, those words stuck in my brain, though, and I worried about coming across these people on my walks.

There were a few times I did run into some rather interesting characters. It’s incredible how you can change the narrative for yourself if you simply talk to someone like they are a human being.

Rather than avoiding eye contact or being hostile like so many people I know have treated those less fortunate than them, I smiled and bid them good morning, and if they happened to ask for a smoke or some change, I’d either give it to them, or politely say I didn’t have anything to share. Easy. Simple.

Things don’t always have to be so gawd damn politically charged, people. Sometimes, we can just be human, and that’s enough.

The only terrible experience I had during the six months I walked to work every day was the time that guy tried to murder me in his car.

Okay, so yeah, that was not ideal.

I was walking down one of the quieter side streets and saw a small car creeping along the road, moving toward me. When you are a person walking alone in the dark and a strange vehicle is slowing down while approaching you, the alarms begin to ring.

I moved off the sidewalk and onto the grass to ensure I was more than an arm’s length away from the curb. I didn’t need any creepo grabbing me from the driver’s seat, trying to abduct me.

I had artisan bread to craft!

As I moved deeper into the grass beside the sidewalk, something weird happened, which set off more alarm bells. Larger alarm bells. The kind of alarm bells I’d imagine go off when an air raid is happening.

The car started driving onto the grass too.

Yep, there he goes, over the curb.

Both front tires are now on the sidewalk.

And now he’s driving onto the grass straight towards me.

This is a problem, the logical part of my brain thought. The rest of my brain screamed, “This is how we die!”

Except the guy was still moving at a snail’s pace.

It was like that Austin Powers scene where the dude is about to be run over by the steamroller, but he’s like 30 feet away and moving at 1 KM/hour.

That’s when I made eye contact with the man. He was looking right into my soul. Or maybe he was looking through it. Because no sane person would try to slowly drive directly through another person if they had that person’s soul in their sightline.

The guy looked tired. Like hadn’t slept for 90 hours and was starting to hallucinate, tired. Maybe he was asleep. Perhaps he was sleep-driving.

I’ve heard of people sleep-fucking, so sleep-driving doesn’t seem too far-fetched.

But he did see me. Every time I’d go to move to get out of the car’s path, he’d slowly swerve and reposition to where I had moved. He was indeed trying to run me down.

He could have been more effective in his execution (see what I did there).

The sleepy/murderous driver and I played this game for a good two minutes until I grew weary of his shenanigans and darted quickly out in front of his car and across the street. Without hurry, he drove back onto the road and carried on his way.

Yes, yes, I should have gotten his license plate. I should have called him in. There are so many should-haves in this situation that I failed to do, I should be charged for neglecting my community.

I was freaked the shit out, though, you guys, and needed to get the hell off that side road as quickly as possible as I feared he was going to bang the most leisurely you-ee in history and come back to finish the job.

I kept a closer eye on the local news for the next few days after that, and nothing came up regarding a psychopath in a tiny red hatchback, so I guess he only had sleepy eyes for me.

I rerouted my path for the rest of my walking days after that — keeping to main streets and busy thoroughfares.

I’ve had a few close calls with death over my 39 years, but the time a man tried to slowly run me down was probably the strangest and, not to mention, the most lackadaisical of them all.