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This morning I caught myself doing something that made me think, "Oh shit. I'm one of them."

I was crossing the street on a red light, in a break between cars. A car was coming though, and quickly. And I didn't pick up my stride. I (almost) didn't get scared as the SUV barreled towards me as I strode full-ego across the highway on-ramp. I didn't flinch. At least, not physically.

Yes, I was being a Boston pedestrian.

Here's the thing. Everyone has it wrong. It's not the Boston drivers that are bad. It's the pedestrians. The people on foot. Run over someone and their deranged self-importance will most likely total your car.

Granted I don't drive a car here, but I sure walk among them. I've been a passenger in plenty of cars here. I don't see anything out of the ordinary. In fact, I'm kind of let down. Boston drivers all graduated from the Emily Post School of Driving compared to their on-foot counterparts. If I did have a car here, I'd be in prison for deliberately not braking as some Masshole (Hey-o! Regional word.) walked boldly into oncoming traffic when the red hand was clearly telling them to stay put.

It's an "I don't fucking care who you are, do you know who I am" attitude combined with a love of danger and disregard for general traffic order that, for the last several months, has blown my mind. I glare at people as drivers slam on brakes and lay on their horns to avoid the chaos they're creating by mindlessly walking into a major intersection.

Sure, why not go ahead and trot across the street if you think you can make it. Everyone does it. I do it. Save yourself five seconds. But I guess, as time goes on, you realize the cars will stop for you and so you just don't care and you waltz into the street with the "Oh, they'll slow down" mentality.  Until that one time when they're texting and then they don't and then - oh I hope I'm on the curb to see that, fucker.

We saw it the other day when a few people with a stroller were walking across a busy intersection that has all sorts of messed up diagonals and one-ways and generally, it's confusing and hard to tell where cars are coming from. This party of adults plus stroller reached the red light. They started to hesitate, but then, their friend (she was the loudest, obnoxious one also wearing sweatpants) strode into the street as if to block traffic. She told everyone to follow, squaking loudly as cars stopped before hitting everyone. "They have to stop for you! It's the laaaaw!"

Well, true. But imagine if every person in Boston had this mentality and just ignored all - oh.

The best is when they're all lemmings and one person darts out thinking they can make it before the next car and then everyone else just follows without looking up from their texting or Words with Friends and then - brakes, horn honking, and people looking surprised to find themselves two inches from someone's grill. I stand there like, WTF?

And while we're on the subject, let me say a little something about the Boston runners who think they are God's gift to running and can therefor run four abreast on a small sidewalk and play a game of chicken with you to the point where it's not a game and they plow into you if you don't back down. Anyone who considers themselves a runner does it (i.e., not the mom in spandex, but the three fit guys in those obnoxious barefoot shoes). I've never run in a more arrogant, self-important town. SF, LA, Dallas, and plenty of cities I've run in just while visiting - the sidewalk is a two-way road. You stay on your side or move single file to pass. You are not too good to totally disregard your fellow sidewalk users. It must go hand-in-hand with the fact that you don't have to smile at or make eye contact with or acknowledge another human's existence as you pass someone here. The other day I was out running and two older guys said "good morning" to me and I nearly fell over. Definitely not from Boston. If Texas made me soft, Boston will fix that.