In the city the most ordinary exercise in mundane futility can turn into near tragedy with a one second mistake. Drive through the city sometimes and actually watch what happens. People miss death and tragedy by seconds every day. Life in Sin City is built on near misses.

The Near Miss

by Royal Hopper

As you drive down the busy Sin City byway, your brain on the blissful automatic setting that all city dwellers develop for the daily grind of life in the city you come to an intersection that should be safe.
The speed limit is slow on this street and there are many stop sings and traffic lights. It should be safe.

As you pull to a stop at one normally peaceful and boring intersection on your way to the daily mortgage paying exercise you engage in by habit and necessity, your mind drifts away remembering the weird dream you had last night …the stupid thing you said at work because you haven’t slept worth a crap in weeks and the theme of the next blog you will write to keep your brain from turning to mush .
As the automatic part of your brain shifts gears looking up at the light to make sure it was still red …your eyes suddenly grow wide and your active brain screams to life with a surge of Adrenalin as one inattentive drivers creeps into the intersection to make an illegal turn and is stopped in its tracks by cars that jumped the light before it turned and are headed right towards it.
You draw a deep breath ready for the horrible sound of shreiking tires and the crash of metal on metal and the sirens of the fire and police and ambulance first responders that inevitably follow a tragedy in this city.
At the same time a cab driver ( a vegas cab driver mind you ) gets impatient at waiting at the intersection for the mini traffoc jam to clear up and floors it right at the time the car stuck in the intersection and for a second it seems a three car collission is unavoidable and right about that time a pedestrian jaywalks across the street behind the intersection and reaches the median just a a vehicle turns into the turn lane and looks for certain it is about to clip the pedestrian.

Reflexively you press your foot down on the break pedal and flinch turning your head away at the coming disaster …Then as you prepare to grab your phone and call EMS in case they somehow miss the inferno of mayhem that is about to happen ….turning your head and vberting your eyes but somehow unable to avoid watching …you see nothing ….
The impatient cab driver who seemed about to plow into the car stuck in the intersection missed them by inches veering slightly as he sped through the intersection. The car waiting to turn was finally able to turn and the car stuck between them crept across the intersection seemingly stunned by the close call . The pedestrian jumped up onto the median and stood waiting patiently for the light to turn ans perhaps regretting jay walking in a mixture of commuting casino workers and intoxicated tourists from Minnesota.

Just as quickly as it developed the near miss was over. No one even stayed around to flip the bird at the other motorists. They just went on their way to the next near miss.
You cant obsses about near misses and could have beens and almost was’s There are just to many of them to worry about each one. When near misses happens you suck in a breath of fresh air learn your lesson and move on… There is just to much to do
and if you thought to much about it you would never go outisde.

That is life in the City of Sin
Love you Sinners