Becoming California law on Jan. 1, 2023, is the Freedom to Walk Act, Assembly Bill 2147. It was introduced by Assemblyman Phil Ting. Like we should be presently blowing milk through our nostrils in surprise when mentioning The Tingster is from San Francisco and a Democrat.
Ting (Tang. Walla-walla bing-bang…) feels that controlling jaywalking is racist. At worst, like if you’re macheting an elderly person while causing a traffic jam, it should be a misdemeanor. A “whoopsie.”
Dear Mr. SCV:
I think I made a “whoopsie.” In my ongoing and failed attempts at becoming a Miss Demeanor, I think I overdosed on my nice lady hormone shots. Instead of injecting .005 mg of daily anti-Bruce Jenner shots, I think I’ve been mistakenly taking a pint.
While my voice is already Minnie Mouse high-pitched, I’m starting cars three blocks away every time I exhale. On the bright side, Valencia is rodent-free for the first time since the last Ice Age.
I really want to try out for the Canyon Theatre Guild’s next performance of “Li’l Abner” (as Daisy Mae!) but worry the audience may find me still too much like the annoying eighth-grade boy I am instead of the powerfully alluring sexpot hillbilly temptress I really, really, am inside.
Any suggestions?
From his mother’s basement in Valencia, Signal LTE enthusiast,
Diega de la Verga
Yes, Diegita. I do have a suggestion. Jaywalk to excess AFTER Jan. 1 so all of us can have a shot at you without any serious legal repercussions.
Interestingly, there has been a war against jaywalking going back a century-plus. The term itself is derogatory, going back to the 19th century where a “jay” was considered a rube, dumbbell, resident of Palmdale or country bumpkin.
Like Daisy Mae, only not so leggy and hubba-hubba.
Hitting pedestrians seemed to flirt with becoming a national sport. Authorities from federal to local tried to terrorize or coerce absent-minded asphalt hikers to watch where they’re going. In Atlantic City, in the 1920s, along with other cities, jaywalkers were arrested and chained to a sandwich board carrying a big Post-It noting what morons they were. In New York City, when Mayor Rudy Giuliani took over in 1994, the fine for jaywalking was $2. Rudy upped it to $50. The imbecile Bill de Blasio? He raised it to $250. Today, those rural idiots are called, “cell-phone users.”
In one respect, I agree with Mr. Ting for treating jaywalking as harshly as a slap on the earbud.
How many of us had to hit the brakes at a busy intersection or aircraft carrier runway while someone has their iPhone 497 glued to their ear, unaware cars or Navy jet fighters are flying by?
Dear Mr. SCV,
Sailors? Did you just say, “sailors?”
Like in “South Pacific,” coming to the Guild in spring 2031?
Think if I up my daily hormones to a quart I could land the original Mitzi Gaynor lead of Ensign Nellie Forbush? My mom tries to make me drink several quarts of prune juice with my meds. When she tucks me in at night, instead of reading me a story, she sings: “Prunes, prunes, the musical fruit, the more we take, the more we toot!”
Salsa-ing as I type,
Diega de la Verga
Diega. Why take chances? Up those doses to a gallon, both with the nice lady hormones and the prune juice. And thanks for keeping your family heritage alive through country music.
Speaking of car horn noises, let’s get back to jaywalking. It seems like Assemblyman Ting’s move to decriminalize jaywalking might have an opposite effect. More people could get hit by cars, their bodies then confiscated by the homeless who drag them to their underground lairs and perform unholy scientific experiments on the remains. Like crudely turning their slacks into bellbottoms.
Besides the braindead smart-phone putz, old, short people tend to jaywalk. And the handicapped. I’ve stopped at crosswalks that are at least 5/8 of a mile long. After 10 minutes, people have gotten out of their cars and start cheering: “YOU CAN DO IT!!!!” I think that’s going to be Joe Biden’s sole 2024 presidential campaign plank. I suspect that’s probably why the Dems enacted this legislation, to protect Dopey Joe from yet another future impeachment charge. Call me impatient, I also don’t like debilitatingly short women, or Joe Biden, waddling across the nation’s crosswalks, stymying traffic while carrying huge straw baskets on their heads and smiling out of context.
Know what else bugs me?
I am also troubled by our youth, the ones with hot rod attitudes. They stroll through a crosswalk 20 minutes after the light turned red as if auditioning for Bit Part Dancer No. 23 in “West Side Story,” snapping their fingers, smoking a cigarette and glowering at you like, “I just DARE you to run me over…”
Sweet Mother Mary, Uncle Bob and Joseph.
I think that last one settled it for me.
Come Jan. 1, 2023, I’m getting a big cattle catcher welded to the front pumper of the Scared o’ Bears Ranch official truck. It’ll scoop up jaywalkers of all races, beliefs, genders, sizes and inappropriate eye contact toward we superior motorists, trying to get to where we need to go with the horsepower God rightly granted us. Then, we push a button. It lifts the screaming concrete moseyers into the Size 13-X Acme Industrial Shredder in the truck bed and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we feed the roses throughout the city’s many lovely medians…
Dear Mr. SCV:
They’re probably all a bunch of bitter, hate-filled, emotional zombie Democrats, unloved and jaywalking, just for the attention.
Quick question. What do you think of my chances of starring as Blanche in “Streetcar Named Desire”? I’m working on a new monologue about walking safely…
Diega de la Vega
John Boston is a local, award-winning writer who doesn’t like to walk or people who like to walk. Visit his bookstore, johnbostonbooks.com, and buy stuff.
