The pedestrian getting off the PVTA bus didn't even glance at the road before walking. Perhaps this adult sized person, bundled against the wind, was having a flashback to his or her days in elementary school when the vigilant bus driver would unfurl the flashing STOP sign in order to assure safe passage. Unfortunately for everyone, this a public bus, sans signage.

Additionally, the bus was pulled over into a designated bus stop outlet, which allowed traffic to freely flow in both directions. So, when this passenger exited the bus and immediately began to hustle across the street, cars flowed in both directions. This pedestrian acted immune to the consistent smushability of the human body.

The saving grace for our capricious Frogger was that he or she dashed into traffic within the confines of a crosswalk. In Massachusetts, crosswalks are a Big Deal. Capital B, capital D. If you fail to stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk, no matter what happens, it will be considered completely your fault. Unless otherwise dictated by a traffic signal, crosswalks are considered the Holy Land of pedestrian safety. Inside their boarders, no harm shall be done. And so it was written.

And while, legally speaking, crosswalks may serve to protect pedestrians from vehicular manslaughter, those thick white lines are not, literally speaking, a forcefield.  Which is to say that if a speeding piece of rolling metal were to come in contact with the delicate musculature of a human spine, even while basking in the holy light of the hallowed crosswalk, you dead. Dee Eey Dee, Ded. Maybe you'll get an extra shiny halo in heaven, but not in the morgue.

I've stayed away from locker room centered posts for awhile now. Karma's a bitch and I have no desire to upset the delicate nature of a scale already so precariously balanced.  But yesterday. . . Maaaaaaaan . . . Yesterday. What I saw yesterday in that beat up bygone-era UMASS men's locker room, now used only by recreational swimmers, I don't know what to do BUT write about it.

I have seen a great many bizarre and impossible to predict souls slosh their way through this locker room over the better part of the last decade.  And, more to the point, some aspects of the freak show are now par for the course.  It would be weird if I didn't see some aspect of the show.  I mean, the locker room just isn't the same without Unbelievable-amount-of-back-hair Guy or Jocky McJockerson.

Or, like yesterday, I saw the dude who looks like a miniature version of the Dunkin Donuts' "Time to make the donuts!" Guy from their 90's TV ads. This cross between a New England celebrity (I once saw the actual DD guy while shopping in a Pittsfield TJ Maxx as a youngster) and the Johnny Depp idiration of the Oompa Loompa (see picture puzzle below).  This mostly harmless character has a particular propensity for shuffling along the cement floor in his shower shoes -- totally naked. Like, he's holding his towel lazily in his right, but shuffling like a sad, droopy-skinned, wind-up toy robot.


And this, is normal to me.  It no longer even blips my radar. Catching a passing glimpse of Mini-DD is merely checking off a square on my work-out BINGO card.  Sometimes it happens, sometimes it don't.

But yesterday.  Maaaaaaaaan. Yesterday, we had some wild card shit go down. Possibly even a technical foul.

A few days ago I received an email containing an organized file of my students' reviews from last semester. For each class I was given two zip files. One file was the result of the students'  1-9 rankings of both my teaching and the class itself, in a variety of areas.  The second file for each class contained the students' open response prompts about what they felt were the strengths and weaknesses of the course.