Earlier this evening, I watched Kicking and Screaming, a 1995 tale of Gen X malcontents. Like a Seinfeld episode, it’s a movie about nothing. It’s a bunch of Ivey League graduates trying to figure out what to do after graduating. Mostly, they choose to do nothing but talk philosophy, trivia and women.

Eric Stoltz’s character was given a line that stuck with me: “How do you make God laugh? You make a plan.”

The sizzle of the tires burning against the pavement lingers in my nostrils. He darted in front of my car, and I locked my brakes in an attempt to avoid him.

I almost hit a pedestrian yesterday. The close call left a stone in my gut.

I was driving south on Fourth Street North in St. Petersburg in the inside lane, not far from our new Chipotle restaurant. In front of me, a few cars sat stopped in the lane, due to an SUV turning left ahead. The big truck oddly straddled both the left-hand turn lane and the inside driving lane. Naturally, I changed lanes – to the outside driving lane, so I wouldn’t have to slow down.

As my car sped toward the front of the line of stopped cars, a man ran into my path. He came from the left, and I couldn’t have seen him. The line of stopped cars obstructed my view.

Apparently, he thought both lanes were stopped. They weren’t.

The brakes pulled my tires to a halt, locking in the process. The awful smell of singed rubber wafted through the vents and the open drivers-side window. He dodged in a panic, and I couldn’t have missed him by more than a few inches. If I had reached my hand out the window, I could have grabbed his shirt as I passed him.

After my heart started again, I saw his figure in my rearview mirror running to the curb.

I don’t mean to be an asshole about it, but I hope he wet his pants, and committed a lesson to memory as he washed the yellow stains from his undershorts. Frogger is a dangerous game, and hopefully the good scare I gave him will convince him not to tempt Mistress Fate.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no interest in hitting a pedestrain. He probably scared me as much as I scared him. But, nearly 5,000 pedestrains die each year. If I would have hit and killed him, it would have proved a meaningless death. There was a crosswalk a block away, at a light where motorist would expect a man to cross the road.