“Since you been gone, I can breathe for the first time. I'm so moving on, yeah, yeah."

I feel like a used sponge walking in the humidity of a New England summer day. My eyebrows fail me as sweat beads drop from my forehead and into my eyes or onto my blouse. Thousands have seemingly pooled across my chest. Other streams of the salty solution slide down my cheeks like summertime snowflakes.

We reach the halfway point of our two-mile lunchtime walk in the confusing industrial, residential, and commercial section of the Western Massachusetts town. Walking on the sidewalk of a main street, traffic is nearly nonexistent. A police officer and construction crew stand in the median with big machinery. Sounds of crunching gravel and dirt combine with screeching howls from equipment in desperate need of lubricant.

We speak of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness when a man in his mid-30s dressed in black shorts, a top, and sneakers comes toward us on a mountain bike. Gauging his speed and maneuverability, this isn’t his first time using this mode of transportation. My initial instinct is to move aside and let him pass, but as he comes closer, I maintain my course and refuse to give up my path.

She utters, “Stay where you are.”

We’ve previously had this conversation. Many times. She strongly believes in the principles of pedestrian rights. We walk alongside traffic in the same direction. The bike path on both sides of the street is clear and he is bicycling on the incorrect side of the road. He should be riding with traffic, not against it.

As he reaches us, I calmly say, “Sir, you should be in the street.”

“Construction, Dipshit.”

Whoa.

My mind draws a blank. Emptiness. Blackness. I am dumbfounded; flabberghasted, and at an utter loss for words.

When they return at what seems like an eternity of dejection, my head turns uncontrollably in various directions. “Excuse me?”

The thoughts leave my mouth in a disorderly and disjointed fashion. I rattle off all the reasons his rationalization doesn’t work and finish my rant with “Asshole!”

He is gone. He has peddled out of sight.

I no longer feel the humidity of the mid-afternoon. I am motivated by his callousness and my ire. As we round the corner, we change the topic to politics and conversations in which we agree. My blood pressure surely drops and breathing no longer seems so labored.