If you don't want the rotten apples don't go to the barrell look in the trees

I used to tell Misaki what a dangerous person I was, how sometimes I would get on trams without a ticket and just stand in the doorway to hop off* or how I was so bad that sometimes I would go to the supermarket to buy a 600ml coke on a dusty summer night and get a bag, or how sometimes when picking up the phone I would just say 'yello' not giving the caller the comfort of knowing who they had actually reached**.
But recently I have been taking advantage of Italy's liberal cycling laws and after one ride, simply ditched my blue plastic helmet. Well not ditched it, it might be worth money on traid in or I may pass through a country that requires it by law, but after an amazing period of 20minutes without a single driver honking at me and yelling something unintelligible at me simply for riding a bike, an amazing 20 minutes that was followed by an unprecedented mindblowing 4 hours of not a single piece of abuse from italian drivers despite my irregular stopping to take a photo, consult maps or forget which side of the road I was supposed to be on, I realised that Italian driving for all the bad wrap it gets actually takes cycling in stride.
So hence I banished my helmet to the pack rack knowing it obscures my vision and statistically has been shown that I am much safer on the road in countries that don't have mandatory bike helmets.
That said, I love it, I almost dread going home to being constrained to the humility of dorkitude that is having to wear a bike helmet. Something that from the humble origins of the stack hat, never managed to get cool even though it has come a long way.
And so without a helmet I have become even more dangeresque than before, even though it is perfectly legal here. I have also becoming bored of the current combo embarked on growing a demonic trident beard feature for the next country. Who knows when this decent into vile damnation will end.

*I'm underselling myself I actually had this down to a fine art by 2nd year uni, an art that I calculate saved me around $800 in funds that could prop up a strugling public service.

**this greeting unprofessional though it is, is much better than saying 'H*£a MPE tohm speaking' which was my old work greeting and it seems that only brevity could stop the auto pilot on this one.