The thing about me is that I haven’t outgrown my proclivity for pranks which is really just a facet of my mean streak. Copulate that with my penchant for experimentation (thus the “tinker” in “tinkertailor) you get a progeny that results in the incident of me crossing the road…

But first some background.

Near my workplace is this road where the traffic is often moderately heavy, and has no pedestrian crossing anywhere nearby. The problem is, anyone from my office building who is tired of the cafeteria food must first cross this treacherous road before they can reach the greener grass on the other side.

It is thus not uncommon to see a poor office worker standing by the road waiting forever for that felicitous moment where the road clears completely, allowing them passage in their journey towards fulfillment.

Being one of good judgment when it comes to matters of how velocity, acceleration and time affects bodies, I seldom have trouble crossing the road, meaning that I don’t spend as much time waiting beside the road.

I soon noticed that others waiting to cross the road are often happy to cross the road along with me. In other words, it seemed to me that people are happy to rely on someone else’s judgement to cross a road, even though that someone else is a perfect stranger.

Well that was just a theory of mine, so I had to put this theory to the test.

One fine afternoon, I was waiting beside the road, along with 2 others.

I decided to step off the kerb. Even though the only way I could have made it across alive was to literally run across.

Of course, the whole point of waiting beside the road is to wait for it to be clear enough so that you can comfortably walk across. You don’t want to run across, unless you’re in a huge hurry, or unless you realise your misjudgement just as you’re in the middle of the road.

But I stepped off the kerb, and even took a further step. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was - both the other 2 guys waiting with me stepped off the kerb as well.

I then stepped backwards, back to the safety of kerb. The 2 guys suddenly looked really confused, and hesitated. One decided to turn back like me, the other made it across thanks to his sprinting ability.

I do acknowledge that the experiment was rather evil, so I tried hard to suppress my laughter when I witnessed the reactions of those 2.

But hey, I learnt something.

And don’t try this at home.