What are you, stupid?

That's what the guy yelled at my back toward the end of my pathetic little run today. Seems I had jogged across 10 or 15 feet of new sidewalk he'd just finished laying in front of one of the jillion or so new condos along Fauntleroy Way.

So I stopped, took out my earbuds -- interrupting a perfectly good jam by War -- and replied, in my best you-talkin-to-me DeNiro:

"Me? Am I stupid?"

This is exactly the kind of potential confrontation that can get me into trouble. I'm too prickly and smart-assy to let it go, yet too wimpy to live through it if we actually throw down. I've been nearly shot in a couple of casinos for standing up to mouthy but badass mofos who were likely gangbangers, probably strapping and surely not joking. So maybe I am stupid.

In this case, though, hey, sidewalk dude was the idiot who didn't bother to rope off or even put up a cone to mark his fresh concrete. Unlike the other guy with a fresh patch up the street. His new sidewalk I'd dutifully and happily run around. But this dumbass was putting his misfortune on me, like I wanted to run through his stupid cement. That bugged me.
Besides, it didn't look wet to me; no, I didn't think I was stupid for traipsing across it.

In fact, if anyone should be mad ...

Thankfully, the frontal lobotomy kicked in before the full shot of testosterone and I decided life's too short. I could save my powder for another gunfight.

Rope it off next time, I told him, and I turned around and ran the rest of the way home.

And then locked the door.