Thou Shalt Not Pass

I will fully admit that, on occasion, I have a rage problem (In my defense, rage is really the best of the seven deadly sins, with apologies to lust and gluttony). Many people make my vision run red, including, but not limited to: hipsters, hippies, nerds, children, teenagers, old people, and basically everyone who is not a man or woman in his or her mid-to-late-twenties who lives in the Northeast.

But you know who really takes the aggravation cake?

Slow-walkers.

Collectively known as "the worst people in the world," slow-walkers are those bastards who seem to have forgotten that the cardinal rule of city living is "Don't be in the way."

So they dilly. They dally. They linger. They weave. They shuffle. They waddle. They hesitate. They stop abruptly. They look around dreamily, as if seeing foot traffic for the first time. Those without the ability to walk and talk at the same time try to walk and text at the same time.

And that's just the individuals.

See, slow-walkers like to travel in packs. They form these impassable clumps of obliviousness that take up the entire width of a sidewalk, walking three or four abreast so that no man shall get by them. They are the unaware bouncers of the road, an awful symphony of slowness.

I am glad to see that I am not alone amongst the rage-aholics in wanting to wring Tim and Trudy Tourist by the neck. Researchers have identified something called "Sidewalk Rage," which is exactly what it sounds like.

Ragers tend to have a strong sense of how other people should behave. Their code: Slower people keep to the right. Step aside to take a picture. And the left side of an escalator should be, of course, kept free for anyone wanting to walk up.

But those make sense, right? If you're in a car and just have to take a picture, you'd pull over, right? While I know that pedestrians are not commanding a 2,000 pound killing machine, it's the same principle, right?

Apparently not.

"A lot of us have 'shoulds' in our head," says Dr. Deffenbacher. Ragers tend to think people should do things their way, and get angry because the slow walkers are breaking the rules of civility. It's unclear exactly why some people harbor such beliefs, Dr. Deffenbacher says. Such ways of thinking are generally learned from family, friends or the media, he adds.

Oh, so we harbor those beliefs because we learned them from family, friends, and the media. And you know what we've also learned from those things? EVERYTHING ELSE.

Ragers' thoughts tend to be overly negative, over-generalized and blown out of proportion, leaving them fuming about how they can't stand the situation, how late they are going to be, and how this always comes up, Dr. Deffenbacher says.

Fine. That's fair. I don't need to start throwing shoulders in order to get past Wally the Waddler. In fact, I could probably use a deep breath. But what's the alternative?

In contrast, someone blissfully free of sidewalk rage may still be frustrated, but thinks more accepting thoughts such as, "this is the way life is sometimes" or, "I wish that slow person wasn't in front of me," he says.

"I wish that slow person wasn't in front of me?" Are you kidding? Do people actually react this way? They go, aw shucks, I wish this aggravating thing wasn't happening? What an Eeyore way to go through life. What is this, Canada?

(Grumbles)

Look. I fully understand that it's unwise to develop rage blackouts because of mundane things like tourists, packs of teenagers, or young families who seem to be schlepping every single one of the baby's possession as if they're looking to make a base camp around the stroller's 3,400 square foot gravitational field.

So next time I'm out there, trying to get from A to B, I'm going to suppress the part of my brain screaming at me to slap the slow-walker upside the head. I'm not going to let their plodding, torpid pace bother me. I'm going to smile and I'm going to give them a friendly clap on the shoulder and I'm going to ask, "Say, pard, can I help you today?"

And I'll swallow my rage and direct it inwards, where it belongs.