It has been an interesting week on the observation front.  Not so much out of the ordinary as opposed to things just catching me off guard. 

For starters, I was taking the back way into the Best Buy parking lot (you learn interesting shortcuts into local shopping areas during Christmas) and happened upon an ambulance parked under a tree towards the back.  I decided this was a great idea – disperse the ambulances to various parts of the city in order to improve response times.  They are going to probably sit around anyway waiting for an event anyway so why not increase the opportunity to save a life. The surprise moment came as soon as I passed by the ambulance and noticed the drive sitting on the back bumper smoking a cigarette.  I have to question this choice of occupations.  He spends his days probably witnessing some horrible situations of which more than one has to be heart attack or stroke based.  However, he still chooses to increase his odds of requiring the services of his organization.  Maybe smoking is a means to calm his nerves after dealing with the situations he faces at work. 

 A day or two later I was sitting in an Chinese restaurant waiting for a carry out when a lady walked in with her 4 to 5 year old son.  First off, it hit me that I have a poor ability to actually judge a child’s age.  Guessing this is due to not having children of my own and really do not have a lot of contact with children in the pre-school to kindergarten range.  Hopefully some little kid won’t hold up a filling station while I am there and then have to try and give an age estimate to the police… not to mention I don’t think the height charts on the exit doors go that low.  As I was sitting there (admiring the fact that the lady was able to speak perfect non-accented English and then apparently converse in fluent Chinese -or Mandarin – no clue with the Asian lady behind the counter), the child asked if he could have one of the new ice cream bars he saw on the menu.  The mom looked like she was going to happily comply with his wish when she read the fine print indicating it was sugar free.  I had noticed that on the sign and thought this would probably increase his chances of scoring the treat.  Contrary to my assumption, she said “no, that is sugar free, I don’t want you to have that”  Whoa, luckily the kid asked the exact same question I wanted to ask “why is sugar free bad?” (thanks kid).  Her response was “It’s just not good for you.. bad stuff”.  In the age of fat nation, I was kind of stunned since it seemed like a lesser of evils and a potential enforcement of choices in future treating situations.  I actually pondered on this all the way home and ended up asking my wife to weigh in on the situation.  She immediately sided with the mom under the argument that sugar substitutes are bad for children.  Is this true?  I recalled the sign did have a Splenda logo in the bottom right hand of the sign (I have a tendency to recall scenes in pretty good detail which you might at first think is a good thing, but if you know of a way to eliminate the mental picture of the 250+ pound lady wearing the red skin tight running shorts during the Bix 7 road race, I’m all ears) .  Is there a age when sugar alternatives are good for you.. is it bad at any age…. is this position wrong and we have another Olestra scandal on our hands?  … of course I am sure that breaded chicken in the thick orange sauces is sooooo much better for the kid.

Lastly, and the most startling, observation happened today.  I was coming out of the Culver’s parking lot in East Peoria and was first in line at the stop light waiting to turn left.  I usually hate approaching this light from the right because it isn’t sync’d real well with another light about 3/10ths of a mile away which causes the need for “critical decision time” when you have to determine if there is enough room past the light not to block the intersection if the cars get stopped at the other light- by the way, intersection blocking is PET PEEVE of mine!   I was simply watching the vehicles approach from the left and taking in the sights and sounds when I noticed the car in the lane closest to me (on the left) started slowing down which is generally a good sign that the light is preparing to turn.  For some reason my spider senses flared up and my attention diverted to a van alongside that vehicle that showed no sign of slowing down – in fact, it looked like it was accelerating relative to the vehicle that was slowing down.  Sure enough, the light turned green (actually green arrows because I was a T intersection) and the lady in the van just kept coming – still 3 to 4 car lengths away from the intersection… I hesitated for seemed like an eternity and half expected the car behind to start leaning on the horn…. no decline in speed…van still approaching, van entering intersection and then I caught a good view of the older lady driving – guess in the late 50’s (okay, I suck at older ages as well 8^)  I was getting ready to raise my hands in the standard palms up for the universal “WTF?” display when she turned her torso 90 degrees to me, raised her hands in the air in the stick ’em position, opened her eyes wide open, opened her mouth and shook her head violently like she was trying to scare a kid.  She continued through the red light like than and then calmly returned to the standard driving position and continued on down the road.   I was left dumbfounded – the car behind her stopped and proceeded through the intersection and actually caught the attention of the driver who stopped in the lane closest to me – he was shaking his head in disbelief as well.  I have no explanation for this … other than a death wish.  My thanks to whatever triggered my internal alarms – it actually had a lingering effect on me since I spent the remainder of my drive assessing all the assumptions I make on road.. hope that guy stays in his lane, does he know what a dual turn is, will he accelerate to speed before merging.  Guessing this will pass soon, but that is the closest I’ve come in awhile to getting a ride in an ambulance…. If I’m in luck some guy will have one parked close and, believe me – if so,  I will not give one ounce of concern if he is smoking.