I was rushing to get somewhere, wrapped in my own little egocentric bubble, when a man started crossing the street in front of my car, moving with excruciating slowness.
I like to think I'm a patient, caring person. It is apparently a self-appeasing myth.
I was in a hurry to make an appointment that really mattered to me, and it took every speck of self-control I could muster not to scream or honk or otherwise encourage him to pick up the pace.
My youngest daughter, though, put it all in perspective for me.
"Can you imagine how hard it is to actually get somewhere when you have to walk that slowly?" she asked me, wonder in her voice.
The comment was the equivalent of a knitting needle in the side of the balloon and, more than a year later, I still feel its deflating effect.
I was thinking about the man and my need for patience because I had to register my oldest daughter for classes at her middle school this morning. To be honest, nearly anything that involves pulling into her school parking lot immediately gives my heart an extra-hard squeeze that shoots my blood pressure through the stratosphere.
Last year, at least, there was a one-way driveway around which drivers were supposed to wind to a drop-off lane, before exiting. Instead, consistently, a parent would pull into the driveway, barely, and drop his or her child off right there while anyone who followed was trapped in the middle of the street, effectively cutting off everyone else who was trying to get their kids to school on time. It blocked access from every conceivable direction. It also blocked the path of kids who were walking to school.
Then the swearing and horn tooting and hostility would begin, because no one wanted to be there on time and have the situation make the child tardy. Yet, once the child was out of that first car and moving toward the school door, the next car would do the exact same thing. And on it went.
This year, maybe we'll get lucky and find there's been a complete redesign of the parking lot. Or perhaps parents will all suddenly get a multivitamin that contains both common sense and patience. I know I could use that. Or maybe, as they did in elementary school, the staff will stand outside for a couple of days and show drivers what they're supposed to do.
My mantra this year is going to be simple: There's nowhere I have to be that warrants impatience, because that is what puts kids and even parents at risk. It seems that every year a pedestrian is killed or injured near a school.
The twin driving forces seem to be impatience and inattentiveness, usually on the part of the driver, but sometimes on the part of the pedestrian. And they're brutal.
It's shattering to know that a deep breath and paying a little extra attention to what's going on in the area, coupled with a dash of patience, could actually change those statistics and save those lives.
We need to start seeing each other — in lots of different ways. For one thing, we need to see each other as people who also have places to go and who sometimes make mistakes. If you do that and someone cuts you off or irritates you, it doesn't escalate into a road-rage incident.
When I'm in a hurry, I tend to go just a little faster, to drive a little more aggressively. I'm going to try not to do that.
It would be great to make it through a whole school year without a pedestrian injury.
So let's agree: I won't hurt your child. And you don't hurt mine.
Deseret News staff writer Lois M. Collins may be reached by e-mail at lois@desnews.com. Follow her on Twitter at loisco.