Little shit

I decided to go out and do a little grocery shopping just now, on my bicycle (with the wonderful baskets). It is a beautiful autumn day. I stopped at an intersection and looked to see if anyone was coming. Someone was. Two someones, in fact. They had the stop sign, not me (although I stopped anyway, because often cars don't stop there) - but they ignored it. These two kids on bicycles, going as fast as they could, came zooming down the road, straight through the stop sign, and zoomed into the road I was in. One of them rode full speed into the back wheel of my bicycle.

Crash!

He flew off his bike and it skidded across the road. My back wheel skidded sideways a bit and I stood there aghast. Good god, doesn't anybody teach kids any road sense? (Answer: no. And this is why I stop at intersections even when I don't need to, because adults are no better.)

The kid hit the ground and bounced up again, grabbing his bicycle and starting to mount it. "Are you OK?" I called. He'd fallen hard, but apparently he'd rolled the right way because he looked fine and said so. "Sorry! Sorry!" he shouted, and he and his friend giggled and sped off again, as fast as before. The last I saw of them they were far away, speeding through another stop sign. Apparently one accident wasn't enough for them.

I stopped worrying about the little shit when I tried to ride off again and discovered that my back wheel was buckled. The bike shop man tells me it's too buckled to fix and will have to be replaced. It's bloody expensive, and if I see that kid again I'll be hitting him first. If he's alive, that is. Darwin's law suggests that he won't be.