Why do I let crazy people bother me?
Today, John Gale and I went to Stacks’ for breakfast. As I pulled into the parking lot behind the restaurant, I saw these two pedestrians, a woman and a girl of maybe 8 or so. They were walking along the right side of the alley I had turned into. They were clearly walking forward, but then made a sudden jog toward the middle of the lane. I believe I slowed at that point (we’ll get to that later), but they corrected their course, so I continued past them. The woman freaks out and starts yelling at me as I pass them. “Wow,” I think.
We find a parking spot. As we’re walking to the restaurant, we see her and the kid. (Not sure if it was her daughter or her granddaughter.) The kid is clearly being difficult and throwing a tantrum. At this point, instead of being upset at the crazy lady, I tell John I now feel sorry for her. And it’s true, I did. For about 5 seconds, until she notices me and John. And freaks out all over again. We’re walking away, and the woman starts yelling, “hey you!” and “you skinny punk!” and “get back here!” She didn’t actually say anything abusive, I don’t think, but it was still quite a spectacle.
John turned around to look at her when she started yelling, but I told him to ignore her and keep walking. We get into the restaurant, put our names down and go out on the balcony to wait. I asked John why he had turned around when she started yelling at us. What was he going to say to her? He said he would have apologized. I told her I wouldn’t have, because I didn’t feel I’d done anything wrong.
No sooner had we propped ourselves against a railing than here comes the woman up the stairs to confront me.
“I believe you owe me an apology,” she says.
What I should have said was, “Is that so, you skinny punk?” which would have presumably injected some humility into her righteous indignation. Asking me for an apology. Anyway, I believe I said “Is that so?”
“Yes,” she says.
I tell her what I think happened (though it became clearer later after I thought about it more; I think I got it a bit wrong). That they had jogged out into the lane after they had been going straight. (“Because we didn’t see you.”) That they had continued straight on afterwards.
She says “when there’s kids around, you stop.” Which is a fair point. I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped and the child had continued on into the center. But if she had, I feel like I would have stopped. I don’t know. It all happened very quickly. I know I had slowed down, and I was already going a lot slower than usual because I was coming out of a turn.
And then we get to what really upset her, I think, which was her accusation that one of us had flipped them off. This was news to me: I don’t do that, and neither does John. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. “We did not do that.”
“Then what was this?” she demands, making a gesture.
John tells her that it was just him putting his hand up to grab the oh shit handle (though of course he only said “handle”).
She finishes off with a final burst of vitriol, “Everything’s just perfect for you, insn’t it? Well you can just go on thinking that the world is yours” or something. She then attempted to storm down the stairs, which doesn’t really work on concrete.
“Have a nice day,” I called after her.
I did not bring up her screaming child and attempt to explain to her that she was just sublimating her frustration with her child into an attack on me, an adult. I thought about it and decided against it. I think that would have really got her upset (in addition to being a pretty cheap shot, though true), and I didn’t want to upset her. I wanted her to leave me alone.
I’m posting about this because I can’t stop thinking about it, and I’m hoping writing this down will help me work through it enough to move on. I know I’m a nice person and I am confident in my driving abilities. I don’t feel like I did the wrong thing at any point, though screetching to a halt wouldn’t have been the wrong thing either. But even that might not have satisfied her. Then it would have been, “there’s kids walking here! Why are you speeding around?!?”
John’s response to the title of this entry is, “because you’re nice,” and I’m happy with that. I wasn’t going to let her shout at me, so I walked away. But I gave her a fair hearing when she approached me without screaming, and I feel like we handled the misunderstanding that was responsible for most of her anger.
At the end of the day, though, I guess I just have to learn to deal with crazy people.
john Said,
January 9, 2006 @ 00:32
I think in stressful situations where we over-analyze the results post-mortem, we consistently attempt to determine the best course of action that we should have taken. (This is obvious.) But what we need to realize is that if the outcome of the situation was not disastrous, then we probably did our best.
I was driving with Zack north on 101 past the Golden Gate one heavily raining day and a car skidded out right in front of me, hitting the jersey barrier in the center, and then nearly spun a 360 before coming to a stop inches in front of my bumper. (I had braked severely to prevent hitting her.) For the rest of the car ride (and most of the day) I thought about what I could have done better... slowed quicker, not tried getting out to help her (in the middle of the freeway), etc etc.
In the end we should realize that in situations like these, the outcome was ultimately desirable even if some of the details were not. You diffused the situation, explained that you’re not a skinny little punk. I prevented my car from colliding with someone elses. So we can be proud that, in a stressful situation, we performed pretty darn well.
julian Said,
January 9, 2006 @ 01:26
“Here’s my dog story,” as we’d say in my Consciousness & Cognition class...:
My mother was driving her van when she saw a kid (who looked maybe 14) on a bike on the side of the road. He was obviously trying to cross the (extremely busy) road, and she says she thought to herself that there was no way he could make it across.
No sooner had she thought this and passed him, though, than she heard a bang and a bump. She then saw the kid go flying off of his bike. Thinking she had hit him, she stopped and pulled over. My mother was of course freaking out. Looking at the van and the bike, though, it was obvious the kid had basically run straight into the side of her van. One other car pulled over, but everyone else kept driving by.
The kid got up and started running away. My mother told him to stop and wait here while she called the police, because an accident report needs to be filed either way.
The police arrive and ask everyone’s story. Kid first. The kid tells the police that my mother slowed down for him to cross and then sped up and hit him. Fortunately the other driver steps in and says there’s no way that happened, the kid obviously rode straight into the side of the van—my mother had done nothing wrong.
Apparently the police knew the kid and his family because they’re well known in the small town my mother was driving through. Initial estimate of the damage to the van was something like $700. Later estimate came out to $1700, possibly more. My mother couldn’t look at the police report, nor the insurance report because she’s too stressed. my father has been trying to deal with it all, but both sides want to hear the story from my mother, not from my father.
It turns out the “kid” is actually 18, and thus his parents are not held responsible. If we want the money to pay for the damage we’d have to sue the kid. There’s no way my mother would pursue that because she just doesn’t want to think about the whole thing. She still feels like she hit the kid or something. The police report also apparently went with the kid’s story or something.. I haven’t gotten the full details on that yet.
Sparky Said,
January 9, 2006 @ 02:16
Well, you are sort of skinny. And you can be punk if you wnat to...
;-)
Nick Said,
January 9, 2006 @ 02:38
You’re right, Brian. I apparently have a BMI of 18, which officially makes me “Underweight” according to the U.S. Government. (Height: 72.5 inches, Weight: 133 lbs.) As for punk... does Blink-182 count?
Gordon Said,
January 9, 2006 @ 21:09
Mmmmm, pancakes.
Alan Said,
January 27, 2006 @ 09:04
Having teenage kids myself, I can honestly tell you that there is truth in the saying....
“Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children.”
HeLLo Skinny Mini- Said,
August 19, 2007 @ 23:45
yur so stupid to post this yuh must not have a lifeee
california estate fremont real Said,
February 19, 2008 @ 13:13
Two companies slash 140 warehouse
George Avalos covers jobs, economic development, commercial real estate, finance and petroleum. Reach him at 925-977-8477 or gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com.