Kyle Hepp

November 16, 2007

Yesterday, I saw a woman of Asian heritage walking down the street. Wait, I should actually be more specific, I heard her long before I saw her. She was singing at the top of her lungs. I’m not even sure I know what language she was singing in, at first I thought it was an Asian language but then I might have heard some Spanish thrown in their too and at one point I’m pretty sure she also said something about “my mother, oh my mother.” So this multi-lingual tunester was just walking down the street, singing loudly, dressed in a mumu and pointy shoes that looked like slippers. Her hair was up in a bun but there were big chunks of it that wouldn’t stay put and they were looooooong, like down past her butt long. So I’m thinking she’s crazy, obviously not because of the long hair, but because of the singing. But, I’m thinking she’s crazy in a good way because her singing was sort of making me happy and it was obviously making her happy too as she was grinning from ear to ear. Then, she walks out into the middle of the road and crosses without looking (or stopping singing) and almost gets hit by a car. Now, I’m looking at her a little nervously. The first street she walked out onto was not a busy one. But I’m still walking behind her and she’s headed straight for Alameda, the busiest street in all of Chile. It’s like a highway that goes straight down the middle of the city. She WALKED OUT onto Alameda with oncoming traffic going straight at her. I could not believe it. Cars were screeching to a halt as they slammed on their breaks, a bus almost a hit a car that came to a sudden stop trying not to hit her, people were swerving all over the place to go around her and she wasn’t even looking! I looked around to see if anybody else was noticing this crazy lady with an obvious death wish, but nobody was paying attention. Chileans are fantastic at minding their own business, unless of course, you’re blond. Anyways, she made it across the street. Well, I actually didn’t see her cross the whole thing because it’s like once you cross 3 or 4 lanes of traffic that goes one way, there’s a bike path down the middle before you get to the 3 lanes that go the other way. So I just saw her get to the bike path. I think she knew that I was shocked and amazed by her behaviour because when she got to solid ground she actually looked over her shoulder and smiled in my general direction, as if to say, “Don’t be such a worrywart!”

So from now on, that’s how I’m going to cross the street. Pedestrian right of way, what WHAT! And I’m going to sing while doing it. If I don’t sing, I have a feeling I’ll die.

Oh yeah, and on The Skinny In Chile, I changed the settings so that anyone can post, not just those with a blogger account. My bad, Jayna! I swear, I don’t discriminate against people who live in India.