Some Village Is Missing Its Idiot

I pulled up to a red light this morning and a car with a couple of teens was behind me. A biker pulled up and, for some reason, moved alongside the car. I don't know why; he just did it. Maybe the kid made a gesture while the biker was behind him. So the little teen rolls down his window and starts screaming at this big hairy biker, who just looks down at him with some bemusement, mixed with disgust. Kid's screaming away, cursing the guy. I was waiting for the biker to pick the kid up by something tender and toss him over to the curb.

The light changed and I decided I'd rather read about it in tomorrow's newspaper, so I continued straight ahead. The biker went to the right and the teen tailgated me until I pulled over and let him pass. I should have stopped in the middle of the road, blocked him, and gone over to say, "You are the luckiest dumb little turd in the world right now, and I hope you realize it."

But we don't listen to the wisdom of others. My take on Original Sin, a concept we invented, is not that we have some sin on our souls from conception, but simply that we cannot, will not, learn from others. We have to learn from our own mistakes and that way only. Everybody has to re-invent the wheel as if nobody had invented it before them; each person has to learn for themselves not to sass a big hairy biker.

The teen has several choices. Learn from his close call and find better social skills; not learn and get his face re-arranged next time; pick on people smaller than him. He can, of course, grow up.

But, for the time being, some village is missing its idiot.