Walk this way
It is a bright and clement morning and you would like to take a stroll. Behold the sidewalk! It opens up before you. Head held high, you make your way, roaming, traipsing, eyes trained on the middle distance, body sprawled out in every direction as you move. The world seems to part for you like a stream around a rock. You are a pedestrian in the city. Everyone, everything, defers to you.
But as a pedestrian you are not free to act simply as you please. You must first of all observe some semblance of etiquette. To begin with, mind your speed. It is important, having forgone swifter modes of transportation, to affect the slowest pace possible, proceeding with patience and without the slightest concern for punctuality — whether yours or that of the pedestrians walking behind you. A leaden gait and sluggish bearing will endear you to your fellow man, with whom, owing to these qualities, you will have ample opportunity to talk, feel and even smell as they loom anxiously at your rear.
Remember to occupy as much of the sidewalk as your carriage makes feasible at a given time: your authority over the ground beneath your feet is commensurate directly with the inconvenience you cause to others by so ruling it. Do not give an inch. Even the most diminutive figure may still rule the road. Hold your arms akimbo; carry an ungainly cart, trolley or tram; swerve left and right seemingly at random. You can if you wish keep the hurried masses on your back at bay. All it takes is will.
If in your travels you should step onto an escalator, make no effort to remain to the right – that arbitrary bisection of moving stairway into speeddictated lanes being no less than an affront to your right to benightedness. If you should happen upon a shopping mall or place of public interaction other wise t hronged with people, make no attempt to move from one destination to another with grace or order.
No, move erratically, in impenetrable ignorance of your surroundings, pivoting suddenly or stopping on a dime, the better to preserve for those around you an aura of surprise and a sensation of wonder. If at any point you have the opportunity to make another’s travels easier or allow someone else to pass, do not.
As a pedestrian – never forget this – it is your privilege to enjoy your walk on the purest and least forgiving terms. Refuse all concessions.