What have I learned in my 53 years? That I shouldn’t listen to strangers who accost me in the street | Zoe Williams
I was shocked when a man in a van aimed an ageist insult at me. And I regret to say that my son has been no help at all
I was performing an ordinary and not at all illegal cycling manoeuvre recently when a guy in a white van said: “You’re too old to be that stupid.” It was a critique so devastating that I was 10 minutes down the road before I even examined its mechanics. What is the right age to make a right-hand turn? I had also previously assumed that, wearing a bike helmet, I was invisible on the road. I’d come to think of myself as a ninja or a sprite, moving like smoke through traffic, protected only by my agility and smarts. Dispiritingly, it seems I was perfectly visible and other vehicles were just choosing not to notice when I wanted to turn right.
Anyway, I was on the way to meet a friend and, when I described this ageist abuse to him, he said, having quite a theatrical turn of phrase: “Darling, you’re not old enough to be this stupid.”
