Goin' Ape

Breaking my own rules

I left the house this morning at 9:50 to walk the GF down to the bus stop and head over to the library. The sky was beautiful, a thin layer of white film over a radiant sun. Like over-easy eggs. My throat was still feeling kind of scratchy, but I dint mind as we walked down to St. Clair, mostly in silence. When we got to St. Clair, the streetcar was pulling up to the spot right then. I was hoping the light would change and stop the streetcar so she could get on. Sure enough it did, the 'walk' light came on and so we hurried over to the platform. As we stepped out into the street, HOOONNNNK!, we were almost hit by this car coming around the corner through the red light. I looked at the driver with a heavy scowl. I saw her, a middle aged woman, and I flipped her off and held it. The GF and I made our way to the platform, she got ready to get on the streetcar. Suddenly I heard shouting. It was the driver. She hadn't moved. She'd rolled down her window to yell at me. "You should practice watching where you're going!" I was totally incensed, "Ya fucking twat! What the fuck!" I shouted at her. "You weren't looking! I was trying to brake when you jumped out, I didn't have room to stop!" For a second, I felt bad about calling this middle aged woman the t word. Yes, she nearly ran me over and now she was shouting at me, but in this exchange, I had taken the low road. I wanted to reclaim some dignity, so I yelled "Have a nice day, ma'am." She drove off. I realized my last comment must have come out completely sarcastic. I gave my girlfriend a sort-of hug and tried to grasp some nice goodbye message to her, but I think I just mumbled.

I walked to the library, actually passing the streetcar for a while, which was dealing with the traffic problems out there. I was pretty shaken up. The anger at the driver subsided pretty quickly and I felt bad for how I'd handled the situation. Not particularly because I felt bad for the driver, but because I had not presented myself well. If I hadn't flipped her off, she wouldn't have yelled at me. If I'd collected myself an instant longer when she started yelling at me, I would have realized that she was just giving me her side of things. If I felt the need to yell back, I could have pointed out she was running a red and we had the walk symbol on, etc... I probably could have bitten my tongue if there was a 200-lb man behind the wheel.

What got to me, though, was that I was shouting profanities at a total stranger when I had almost no voice. It was a total waste of energy. I was distracted from saying goodbye to my girlfriend because I had just finished the screaming. And say I had restrained myself. Her story would have been, "Some young man jumped out into the street, completely out of nowhere and I nearly hit him." Now her story is, "Some young man jumped out into the middle of the street, gave me the finger and then shouted profanities at me."

When I got to the library, the librarian was a middle-aged woman with short hair, too. She made some friendly comment about navigating the slushy weather. I told her that I was just nearly run-over and I screamed at the driver and I could have handled it better. I was seeking some kind of psychic reconciliation with all the anger between me and the driver.

So if we remember Rule # 4 from "Jux" I suppose we can ammend it to say do not fuck with strangers. It's obvious enough to point out that nothing good is going to come out of a confrontation like this. And the more you can force all your willpower into turning the other cheek, the better for everyone.

Labels: Adventure, Anger, Jux, Redman, Rules

posted by Leo 1:21 PM // |

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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Breaking my own rules