I almost died leaving the gym today. There have been many times where I thought I was going to die in the gym, but this was a legit nearish-death experience.

I was just about halfway across the cross-walk that leads from the gym to the parking structure when it happened. There was an SUV-type car stopped on my right, and just as I stepped in front of it, the driver revved its engine. I stopped and looked up at the driver, only to see the real-life version of the Maxine character from Hallmark cards:

Maxine, from Hallmark.com

Seriously, down to the hair, glasses and sneer.

I thought to myself, “Oh, it’s an old lady!” I love old ladies. I hope to be one some day. So I smiled at her, which was apparently the wrong thing to do.

“WALK FASTER!” She yelled at me. And then to drive home her point she honked.

I am pretty sure I looked like a confused dog at this point. My face was like, “Whu?” I was certain that I’d been walking at a normal pace in the cross-walk. Leaving the gym is my favorite part of the gym experience, so I usually have a spring to my step even after a hard workout. Plus, the cross-walk is only crossing two lanes of traffic (one in each direction), so it probably takes me maybe ten seconds to cross. What I’m saying is, Mean Old Lady had probably been stopped for maybe eight seconds at this point.

Mean Old Lady did not like that I took an extra second to stand there with my mouth hanging open, so she took her foot off the brake. You know, with me still standing in front of her car. For a split second I thought, “Of course I’m going to die all sweaty and red-faced.” She honked again. “MOVE!” She yelled. I had to make a decision – I could either dive forward and roll out of the way, Indiana Jones-Style, or I could be a normal person and step back. I took a giant step backward, and luckily there wasn’t a car coming from the opposite direction. There was, however, a person there, and I slammed into him and almost knocked him to the ground. As I turned to make sure he was okay, Mean Old Lady sped away.

I asked the guy if he’d seen the whole thing with the Mean Old Lady, and he confirmed that the woman had acted totally crazy.

When I got home Mike and Annie were sitting at the table eating. I told Mike that I almost died and we need to finalize our will, and he replied, “You say that every time you go to the gym.”