you habitually trust your life to the sturdiness of brakes and the reaction times of strangers behind the wheels of automobiles by darting into traffic without looking both ways, regardless of what the traffic signals indicate would be best for your safety. in fact, you often cross where there are no traffic signals or crosswalks, often dressed completely in dark Yale blue at ten at night so you’re particularly hard to spot on the roads. it is often only by the reflective qualities of the YALE LACROSSE or TRUMBULL COLLEGE splattered across the navy blue that you avoid severe injury by contact with bumpers or, in less severe cases, sideview mirrors.

i’ve almost come to accept this about your kind, though i must admit that the behavior puzzles me. i presume that you were the valedictorian (or salutatorian for the underachievers) of your high school class with a 4.0 gpa (or better on weighted scales). WikiAnswers tells me that your average SAT score is 1450-1500. your school has produced five American presidents, 17 Nobel Laureates, and countless other distinguished men and women.

as far as i can tell, you’re relatively bright.

i know that some of you were only accepted to the prestigious Ivy League institution because your daddy was one of those presidents or gives millions to the endowment or slept with an admissions officer. granted, you may not have ever been held back a grade, but let’s just say you’re generally not the cream of the academic crop. but still, it would be incredibly unlikely that those who fall in this category are the only ones blindly jumping into traffic.

as i said, given your presumed brilliance, your sidewalk behavior both troubles and puzzles me. but i’ve finally learned to accept this anomalistic stupidity and drive with the presumption that you will stroll out in front of me without warning, ipod ear buds plugged into both ears, cup of Koffee coffee in one hand while the other hand is texting. you’ll likely not even hear when the car behind me smashes into my rear bumper. you’ll just continue your saunter to Sterling.

and that’s okay. it’s just how you are.

but this morning you reached new levels of dumb. with your intellect, i would assume that you can deduce that fresh snow on unplowed, narrow roads might make for slippery, difficult conditions. in fact, i even saw one of you slip on the road as you were crossing Chapel Street after your trip to Starbucks. i would guess you would amend your traditional behavior in these conditions.

but alas, i would be incorrect. i tried to brake for you as i was turning onto Park Street–as the traffic signal indicated i could and should–and when you blindly jumped from the sidewalk, but my little Civic could not come to an immediate stop and continued to slide in your direction. luckily, you must have been a member of one of the athletic teams (though your Yale apparel did not indicate such), because you managed to dart out of the road before your knees made acquaintance with my bumper.

i do want to apologize for any inconvenience i caused you, but i also hope you learned a lesson equally as important as those you learn in your astrophysics or biochemical engineering (or whatever brilliant subject) classes you people attend in those gothic monstrosities–that, under many conditions, your massive intellect will not stop a one-ton chunk of metal and plastic from sending you to the world-class hospital your university runs.

Respectfully Yours,
sara