There are two things in life guaranteed to put me in a bad mood. Starting the day in pouring rain, and getting stuck behind slow walkers.
I’ve always had a fast stride. I cut the estimated walk-time on Google Maps by at least a third. I was nicknamed “spidergirl” in my netball team because I had long arms and long legs. A friend once piped up to say she had broken into a light jog just to keep up with me. I don’t even realise I’m doing it.
Dawdlers are like cars that refuse to pull into the slow lane. They have no spatial awareness as I try to weave around them without knocking anyone over, wasting seconds of my life I will never get back.
On pavements crowded with commuters or people heading to the beach on a summer’s day, I am frequently forced into the gutter as I outpace them. To top it off, they like to give me some side-eye as I pass. But Miranda Priestly rings in my ears: “By all means, move at a glacial place, you know how that thrills me.”
The slow walker reaches peak obstruction on approach to public transport, where getting stuck behind one can actually stop me getting the next train, bus or metro. If you are in Grand Central station or Gare de Lyon, by all means stop to marvel, but everyone else should move through subway gates and underground tunnels at pace.
They are also rife in the supermarket, ambling, turning this way and that, on the phone, with their trolleys, listless.
“Can’t you just relax?” you may be thinking. I can stroll at leisure when I choose. Talking to a friend, walking a dog, pacing same block 10 times to avoid a wind tunnel while on the phone. But when I’ve got places to be or coffee to get, I walk with purpose.
You don’t have to live life in the fast lane. You can be enjoying your 11-minute health walk or be running an errand. But please keep up.