He was on his horn the second the light turned green. I was on my bike in the left turn lane at the intersection of this busy street waiting for the oncoming cars to pass. I hadn't even clipped my shoes into my pedals or started into the intersection before he started laying on his horn. I looked back at him and gave him a "What can I do? There are cars coming." look.
He leaned out his window and yelled, "Get the fuck out of the way!"
I gave him the finger.
He continued to holler, "C'mon, bitch! Move it!"
Now, that pissed me off. It wasn't the honking or the yelling -- I was used to that abuse as I rode my bike around town or in the country. But insulting my personality -- that pissed me off.
I turned my bike around and glared right at him through his windshield. Then I maneuvered my bike around so I was at his open side window.
"What's your problem?" I asked sarcastically. "And why did you call me a bitch?"
"You fucking bicyclists are the problem! You clog up the roads, thinking you own the place. You don't even pay god damn taxes to fix the roads and you want your own god damn lane everywhere. You ride around in those frickin' skin tight suits with advertisements all over them acting like you're Lance Armstrong. When two or three of you are riding together, you don't even let cars get around you and we have to drive 20 miles an hour 'til we find space to pass. And when there's a bunch of you jerk offs riding together, nobody can get by. At night we can hardly see you even though you have those cute, little lights that are supposed to let us know you are in front of us. If there's ever an incident, it's always the car driver that gets into trouble. It's never you assholes who caused the problem in the first place. You all think you're the god damn Queen of Sheba."
"Is that all?" I asked.
"Nah. There's more, but I don't have the time," he replied with a snarky smile.
"Listen, you smart ass," I said. "You need a lesson in manners. And you need to learn a little about riding a bike."
"Oh, yeah?" he said. "Looks like you are blocking the road here. Why don't I pull into that empty parking lot over there and you can give me a god damn lesson on riding a bike?"
"O.K.," I said glancing over my shoulder at the nearly empty parking lot. "Try not to run over anybody on your way."
"Fuck you!" he said as he pulled away from me. By that time the light had changed and he had to wait to turn. I pulled up right behind him. He flipped me the bird through his rear view mirror.
When the light turned, he waited for a few cars, then turned right in front of a blue sedan that visibly had to slow down. I waited until it was clear, then turned and followed him into the parking lot. I stopped beside his side window and released my clips.
"O.K., missy! Just what are you going to teach me?" he sneered at me.
"First of all, I'm not 'missy'," I said. "Do you have a hard on for all bike riders or just women riders?"
"Shit, you're all the same. One's just as bad as the other," he answered. "Besides, you are too a missy. I see your tits poking through your shirt."
I could see that this conversation was going from bad to worse.
"Man, you've got a lot to learn," I said. "Pay attention now if you can. This is not a shirt. It's a jersey. And these are not my tits. They're called breasts -- every woman has them -- and those are my nipples you see. And you see them because I'm not wearing a bra because I get hot when I ride a bike. And when I get hot, I sweat. Women can do some physical exercise, you know. Not like guys like you who sit on their ass in their SUV driving around trying to intimidate people. Well, I'm not afraid of jerks like you."
"Whatever," he said.
"What do you mean, 'Whatever'? " I said with growing anger in my voice. "You sit in your big, fancy car picking on women who have just as much right to be on this road as you do, and all you can say is 'Whatever'? Where do you get off telling anybody to get out of your way? You don't own the road, either. And I probably pay just as much taxes as you do. You're just an ignorant, smart-ass who probably looked at my butt as I waited at the light and it got you going. Rather than just appreciate me for what I am and what I look like, you yelled at me and called me a bitch. You probably don't know a lot about women and you don't know a god damn thing about me."
He looked at me with a surprised look on his face and didn't say a thing. It may have been the first time a woman had talked to him like that and he didn't know what to say. I took that opportunity and kept going.
"You know what?" I went on. "I'm not wearing anything under my pants, either. How do you like that? When I'm riding, every time I pedal, my vagina -- you guys probably call it a pussy, my 'pussy' squishes back and forth, side to side, on the seat of my bike and sometimes it feels pretty damn good. I bet you didn't know that, did you? I bet if you knew that, every time you saw a woman riding a bike, you'd get a hard on. Hell, you'd probably get a hard on if you saw a man riding a bike."
"Would not," he said.
"Oh, yeah?" I quickly replied. "You've probably got a hard on right now, don't you? It probably turns you on to have a woman talk back to you, especially a woman whose tits are pokin' through her shirt. In fact, that's probably why you almost had a wreck when you turned back there -- your boner got in the way!"
"That's ridiculous," he replied meekly.
I could tell I had him on the run. I decided to see how far I could take him.
