What kind of person walks across the interstate overpass?

You know that moment when you've been driving for hours across America on I-80? You've been fighting sleep with a continual intake of pretzels, wheat thins, carrots and Oreos.  You've listened to Harry Potter on tape, sung to you favorite Taylor Swift songs, tried to revitalize with arm circles and core isometrics. You wonder how it is that you haven't driven around the world 3 times in this much time and how can the midwest be so endless with it's flatness and corn rowness and tree and mountainlessness and just when you think you'll surely die from monotony Omaha comes into view.  You thank heaven for the variety in your horizon, feel surprisingly entertained by the option of 4 driving lanes and then curiously view people walking across the highway on the overpass.  The mind reels with the wonder that can now fully be appreciated in contrast to the previous semi-comatose state of the travel-numbed brain.  What kind of person walks across the interstate overpass? Do they have a home? Are they escaping from the penitentiary? Do they have to walk 3 hours to work every day because they have no car and if they apply for a driver's license they'll be discovered as the international spy they were in their previous life? Did they run away from their drug lord family in South America because they wanted to come clean and support themselves on honest money?

Well, I have an answer for you. They might be semi-normal people taking the baby for a walk because it's not quite time for bed, but he's tired and bored. How do I know this? I know this because I actually walked across I-80 last Saturday in Omaha, NE at 5:30 pm.  My grandma sister (my son-in-law's mother) and I were following my daughter through the neighborhood, "tra-la-la," and then I looked and there she was, headed for the overpass. A hundred neurotic thoughts came to my mind. "I'm going to be that person walking across the interstate?" "What if someone sees us. Do you know how many people in America could drive through Omaha, NE? It could be anyone I've ever met, ever in my whole life. Should I wave just in case?!" "Is this even safe? What if the whole thing collapses and we go crashing to injury or possible death only to be run over time and again by the thousand semi-trucks per hour that drive on I-80 through the center of our country?"

My daughter and grandson strolled confidently onto the overpass.  I took courage by this and followed suit. As I was crossing over the cars and trucks and cars and trucks I was overcome by the strange, but familiar, urge to do the most outrageous thing possible. In this case it was throw my cellphone through the fence. As I shared this compulsion with my walking partners they did not reassure me with an "I know, right?" They looked at me as people do when they are in the presence of insanity. What can I say? It happens a lot.  When I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, I have to stop myself  from jumping, When I'm in a Chemistry laboratory, I suppress my urge to break all the glass, I even have to tell myself not to throw my keys into the post office mailbox or library dropbox. So, I exerted all my willpower and walked through the gamut of the emotions that are mine and successfully made it across the highway teeming with vehicles without injury or outrageous incident. Amazing, right?

But don't think all my fears are unrealistic. As we were walking a truck totally honked at me. He honked because he was thinking, "What kind of people walk across the interstate overpass?" and "Don't throw your cellphone through the fence onto the freeway, sister." Thanks dude.