Old Chinese Lady

As tuesday mornings usually dictated, I approach the cross section of Commercial and 10th at 11:28am almost to the dot.
Accompanied by my regular purchase of two sausage rolls and and one single roll of toilet paper (double quilted - no dimples), I continue to munch on my weekly Vietnamese Coconut Bun like the habitual creature that I am.

Approaching the same crosswalk, an elderly Chinese woman shuffles across.
She's hunched over slightly, bearing a "Sav-On" plastic carrier bag full of empty recyclable bottles. As I advance towards her side, she nervously begins to punch the crosswalk button; jittery jabs promptly advance head-on into a cascade of metacarpal fury unleashed upon the poor, inanimate crosswalk button.
"My goodness." I remember thinking.
"If the light doesn't change soon, she might draw blood."

Still green.

There is no let up in Old Chinese lady's light-changing doctrine. I am also aware that I have become mildly irritated by this exercise in futility. "Has she left the oven on?!" I ruminate.
"Perhaps a bad case of diarrhea?"
Even quasi-humurous mental images of Oldlady Diiarrhea fail to allieviate the awkward and inappropriate pedestrian-tension that has been built up.

Pedestrian-tension will only ever remain an awkward emotion; it commonly manifests itself in some sort of tourist-meets-frustrated-resident incident, usually in a large metropolitan city.
After what seems like an eternity, the light changes from green, to amber, to red.

Old Chinese lady carefully shuffles from the curb onto the crosswalk, and proceeds to saunter across the road and down the street as if a sun starved Scandanavian were out soaking in the first day of summer.

In that moment, I recall my deep, intense regret. I wished I hadn't.

I wished I hadn't thrown my sausage rolls at her.