This was nice. This afternoon I had to go check this issue with a control panel for a life station (don't ask) and so parked the truck at the street kind of near where the panel is and put on my emergency blinkers. When I got in there, it was a lot more work than anticipated so was there about an hour and came out and the truck was DEAD - wouldn't start. It's a standard transmission so I was on this flat portion of road but about 30' away was a kind of downhill. So I start pushing the truck so I could jump it off (which I had to do from the drivers side door so I'd have some control). There's all these people walking by and some guy walked right in front of the truck so I had to do all I could to stop it. Then two more people walked it front since it was stopped. Then got it going again and finally made it to the downhill part and got a little speed and jumped in and another guy walked right in front and I had to stop! So then had to get back out to push again! Finally started but man - no one helped or even offered! I think I'm invisible and then found another invisible guy about 2 days ago - I was on my way home and looked over and saw this body laying in the grass right on the side of the road! It's a real busy street and hundreds of cars and people walking down the sidewalk but nobody notices the guy laying in the grass maybe 3 feet off the sidewalk?? Anyway I pull behind the building and go check on him and he's obviously homeless and probably drunk but I still leaned over him and yelled for him to wake up because the way he was laying looked like he truly just fell out dead! There wasn't old clothes under his head like you sometimes see - just him laying in the full sun (but it was storming too, that kind of day). Anyway, he had a pulse (which was more than I had about that time of day) so I called 911 and they said they'd come out to get him so when they get there he pops up awake like buoy! They check him out but he won't go with them. Still, though, are some people just invisible? When people have some kind of problem - simple stuff that just requires a temporary hand - are there people that are just not seen?
Then yesterday after I got home I got this lesson in the temporary nature of things. Nature is cruel and in a flash I understood the hardness of heart of innocent animals and sin nature of humans. There's these cats that hang around the house and they're fine and I don't have to do anything for them but I saw one of them pawing at something and acting all spastic so I walk over and one of the cats had a little chipmunk. Well, they weren't killing the thing outright - they were playing with it till it finally would succumb then go eat it - I'd seen it before. So I was shooing the cats off (there were two) and one would take a dive at it and I would stop him from getting the little fellow. This caused a lull in the activity and then this little chipmunk climbed right up on top of my shoe and sat on it in a little ball and closed his eyes. I thought it was so remarkable that this little tiny chipmunk would sit on a foot of something about 200X it's size, but it was either that or face those cats. He was pretty beat up and all I could do was to cup him in my hands (and he didn't get too bent out of shape, just stayed still) and took him over to the barn where there's lots of hay for him to get lost in and he sat in hay for a second then got himself lost.
I know they're going to find him. I'm sure they already have. So in a way (in my line of thinking) the temporary gestures in life only effect a temporary change. The homeless guy is still a drunk, I still need a battery, and the cat's got to eat. Maybe that's why we're invisible to each other.