Q. Who would you rather be run over by?

(a) A driver behind the wheel of a Cadillac Escalade sporting a “KEEP HONKING WHILE I RELOAD” bumper sticker.

(b) A bicyclist with a gray crate tied by bungee cord to the back of her bike, the crate sporting a peeling, faded bumper sticker bearing the words “PRACTICE RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS.”

I was almost run over by (b) this afternoon as I walked through Nickles Arcade. The bicyclist was in her fifties, ponytailed, seemingly in all kinds of intense and frantic hurry until she passed me, upon which she slowed down considerably and had plenty of time not to walk her bike through the pedestrian arcade and to look in the window of every single friggin’ shop and boutique in the place as she pedaled past as though in a sudden-onset dream state.

I guess if irony were a way to die, (b) would be the way to go. This episode goes in my “Only in Ann Arbor” Hall of Fame file. This kind of thing wouldn’t even happen in Berkeley. I suppose the bicyclist conluded that now that Bush has gotten a second term she might as well toss all that “random kindness” crap out the window.