... or on a scooter.

I popped downtown tonight on my way home from work. Something I would NEVER do unless for some masochistic reason I WANTED to sit in traffic back up clear to nearly the Lobster Pot. For those of you who are Grand Cayman Geigraphically Challenged, that would be about two miles to the roundabout that bottlenecks traffic in the evening commute and would work out to about an hour of my life that I wouldn't ever get back.

As I sat at the stoplight at the junction of Fort Street and Harbour Drive when I heard a screeching sound... Around the corner of the Westwind building came a flock of Ching Chings headed for their roost in the big tree in the courtyard of said building. Close to 100 birds, at full-speed, seeming to flow like black liquid around the corner... and coming right at me.

In my jeep, they would have peeled away and given wide berth, but because the scooter is so small (even with the crash helmet making me look like the Great Gazoo from the Flintsones) they didn't: at least not until the last second. They flapped so close by me that I actually flinched a little in the seat, which must have looked pretty darn funny to the people in their cars in the area.

The other lovely thing about riding the scooter home at night is as soon as the sun starts to set, the bugs come out in force. As soon as I pass the Westin and the Governor's House, I can start to feel them pinging off my forehead, cheeks and chin and hear them bouncing off my sunglasses. Most of them are no-see-ums, but every once in awhile I get a rather stronger zing and hear something bigger splat into me somewhere. I looked in the mirror when I got home to see if my face looked like a windshield, but there was nothing stuck to me. I washed up anyway though. :)