LJWorld.com

The darnedest thing happened on the way to work the other day.

It was late afternoon. The sky was overcast, the light slowly fading.

I approached a T intersection not far from my home and rolled to a stop. I had a stop sign; cross traffic did not, and this particular intersection was near the top of a hill, making visibility slightly tricky.

As I usually do, I looked left, right, left again. Left, right, left, right, right again, left … you get the idea. Self preservation is strong is this one.

Seeing no immediate threats to my person (and, yes, I do have my own person), I pulled into the intersection and began to turn left, my head on a swivel.

I glanced again to my right and … what’s that? A car? Nah, there’s nothing there. I continued, glanced again … and, sure enough, getting awfully large in my field of view was a — wait for it — camouflage Jeep.

There was no real threat of collision, but it was a closer call than I would have liked.

All the rest of the ride in, I couldn’t help but relish the delicious irony of having a close call with a vehicle meant for stealth.

I’d guess in 99.24 percent of all car-bike collisions, the hitter said of the hittee, “Gee, officer, I never saw him/her!”

As a devotee of the see-and-be-seen school of bike commuting, I stockpile sparkly bits — reflectors, lights, high-vis (yet still stylish!) garb, garish lipstick and other “Oh, pretty!” parts — that might make me stand out from, and not become a part of, the background pavement.

So to get creamed by a vehicle painted in a way that it blends into the background would be the ultimate in ridiculousness. Or ridiculousity.

I understand the driver well could have been on his way to safari and didn’t want to spook the big game, so I’m not about to question his choice. Manufacturers go to great lengths to make their vehicles visible — like daytime-running lights, third brake lights, side-mirror blinkers, etc. — so it’s refreshing to see (or not) a ride designed to disappear (into the bush, at least, if not the suburban jungle).

It did remind me of a running joke I had with my mom when I was younger.

Whenever we’d see someone or something cloaked in camo, we’d joke that it was a good thing he/she/it was moving or else it’d be invisible.

The joke, I’ve learned, hasn’t translated well to current generations.

It’s hard to say who was less amused, my wife and kids or the store employees when we’d go to, say, the Gap when camo made a (thankfully) brief foray into fashion and I’d deliberately run into displays of shirts or shorts or pants.

“You really should put up a sign,” I’d say. “I didn’t even see this display of stylishly camo garb.”

Employees would scramble to clean up my mess; my wife would act like we’d never met (but I’m used to that by now).

I tried again the other day at our local employee-owned grocery store when we encountered two fellows apparently straight from the bush (though thankfully unarmed).

I leaned over to my daughter and whispered, “You see those two guys over there?”

She looked: “Yes.”

“I don’t,” I replied.

She was not amused.

Ah, there’s no shortage of camo humor.

Unless, of course, it’s cloaking a 2,000-pound cage bearing down on you.

I swear, officer, I never saw it coming.