I’m driving down 82^nd Street a few days ago and see a woman walking on the sidewalk. Looking at her clothes and her wild hair, I figure about all she needs to be a bag lady is the bags. She is striding confidently forward, and her right arm is extended toward the traffic, with the middle finger pointing up. She’s not looking at anybody, she is simply flipping the bird to every damn one of us drivers as we pass.

I think first of David Letterman and the endless variations he has worked on the joke about the guy who gives him the finger every day when he arrives at work. Then I think of one of my favorite bumper stickers: HORN BROKEN, WATCH FOR FINGER. Does she have laryngitis or something?

We’ve all seen people like this, walking down Burnside or 82^nd or MLK or whatever streets run through the neighborhoods of the underclass in your city. One look and you know they’ve stopped taking their medication. But … usually they are shouting their monologues to their invisible companions, or some imagined enemy, or just to all of us sane and comfortable people in general. Usually they are scowling, casting paranoid glances left and right, screaming insults or threats to whatever demons torment them. This lady is doing none of that.

I’ve already passed her, but I recall the image. What’s wrong with this picture? I realize it’s not the extended finger so much as it’s the small smile of contentment. These people are seldom happy, but she is. They are seldom quiet, but she is.

I think she has reached some sort of Zen state. I wonder if it came to her in a burst of inspiration: "Maybe I don’t HAVE to shout all day. Maybe the finger is enough." She tries it … and it works! And now she walks serenely through her days.

Works for me.