Open Letter: To People Walking on the Sidewalk

Dear People Walking on the Sidewalk,

Why are you always walking around? I do not like to always be seeing you and hearing you. I wonder all of the time where your car is. Well, where is it? I see a bazillion cars parked on the road. One of them is mine. The rest belong to people who I never see. The only thing I see is you walking around. Can you drive already? Sometimes I need to park my car and go inside. You just park your car and walk around with absolutely no purpose. Why not just sell your car if you love to walk so much? I wish that I could sell my walk so I could use my car more. Nah, I am just kidding, I love my ability to walk, but I also love to drive and I do not like to see people always walking around.

Also, you should know that I do not trust you, not even for one minute. Not even to ask the time. Not even to tell you that you smell good (when I smelled you when I walked by you). No, I do not trust you at all. You probably wonder why, right? Well, it is because of this little thing called 'Stranger Danger'. Duh. I am sure that you have heard of that before, so I am not going to get into that right now.

I guess that I am not wary of all of you. I am not wary of; women (in general), people walking nice dogs, people with kids/pushing strollers, people dressed nice/cool, people carrying lots of stuff, men and women walking together and that’s it. Every other one of you I do not even want to see. This includes; guy who creeped around when I was outside last week, other guy who walks by me slow and stares at me when I am smoking, thugs, poor people, hobos and groups of men who might be rapists (how am I supposed to tell who is a group of rapists and who is not?) There are many others, but, I am tired of typing this list.

So, people who are always walking on the sidewalk; why can't you be more friendly? Maybe I would like you more if you said in a friendlyish voice, "Hello, lovely day, eh kid?" or something of that nature. But, instead you look angry or distant or like a rapist or something. Get a friendly countenance, jeeze. You could get a smile on your face for a second and stop stomping around the city. But, maybe you forgot where you parked your car and are pissed off? If that is the case then I completely understand, that having happened to me at least once a day for the past two months.

You should also be aware that I am eavesdropping on you when you walk by. I am not going to ask you to be quiet because I like to try to figure out what you guys are talking about when you are walking around. Yesterday you talked about the power being out, and a few days before that, you got yelled at by a crazy landlord across the street. You told him, 'Hey, shut-up, you are crazy!' I agreed with you for once about that. Sometimes you speak in Spanish and I cannot understand you at all, unless you use the word 'tener' in its various forms, or say something about 'bueno' or just a couple of other things. Some words are similar, so, sometimes I can figure out what you are talking about, but I am never one-hundred percent sure.

I am getting pretty tired of writing this to you. I can hear you outside doing your walking thing. I might peek out of my window at you later after I turn off my lights. I need to keep an eye on whatever it is that you are doing out there. Make sure that you are not 1. raping somebody or 2. getting raped, or other things like murder (which I consider worse than rape but less likely to happen).

Hope you find your car or wear out your shoes,

Emily Illinois