Tonight, driving down California at dusk, Charming Suitor and I witnessed an epic display of lack of human kindness.
There was a long line from the light at Belmont, so we were stopped a good block and a half back. In front of us was an SUV and in front of the SUV was a police cruiser. On the side of the street, getting ready to cross, completely jaywalking, was a man with a cane about 70 years old. Traffic was completely stopped. The man walked up to the window of the SUV and proceeded to yell at the guy that he was driving without his headlights on RIGHT BEHIND A POLICE CAR! He then walked between the two cars and went to the driver's side of the cruiser and TATTLED on the guy in the SUV like they were in kindergarten and the guy had stolen his crayons.
Then he finished his leisurely jaywalk across the street.
It is important to note that the SUV had done nothing to this man, had not moved while the guy was crossing, or blocked his path. Nothing to incite any sort of desire for revenge or retribution.
As traffic finally began to move again, the cop car slid over to the side, and then merged right in front of us, behind the SUV and turned on the lights.
The poor SUV got pulled over and probably ticketed, for having been slow on the uptake with his headlights at DUSK on a well-lit street, a thing I have probably done a zillion times, especially in these weird Fall nights.
CS and I were totally shocked, not at the cops, who really at that point didn't have much of an option, but at the random assholery of the pedestrian who went so far out of his way to make trouble for someone who had not done a single thing to warrant it.
Now, I have on occasion given in to road rage. I have called in a complaint to the "How am I driving?" number on the back of a truck that blew a stop sign and almost t-boned me. When an idiot hipster bike rider flew into my lane of moving traffic at top speed from inside a park without stopping and then almost wrecked himself on the front of my car, caught up with me to ask me what the fuck I thought I was doing, I did respond "Thinning the herd.". And once after waiting for over 15 minutes in a parking lot for a space to open only to have a yuppie in a BMW snake my space from the other side, I might have called him a foul name or two and questioned his parentage at the top of my voice out the window.
But in each case, I felt provoked, incited, and reasonably justified.
Tonight? I wished that I had the power to look up that guy's license plate, get his address, and send him some cookies.
What is the nastiest unprovoked thing you have seen?
Yours in Good Taste,
The Polymath
We're currently living in a small town in southern Germany where the elderly people (and there are a LOT of them) make it their business to go out of their way to tell anyone and everyone what they are doing wrong. They would see absolutely no problem with doing exactly what you witnessed and they would walk away with the knowledge that they had done the right thing because someone obviously wasn't following the rules - and that's WRONG! Keeping the ordnung (rules) is everything in Germany.
ReplyDeletePeople here go out of their way to tell you off about something that doesn't concern them in the slightest. Sigh.
The old man should have gotten a ticket for jaywalking- what a horrible old thing!
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that comes to mind is getting told off because I stood up to give my seat to a pregnant woman on the CTA. Apparently I insulted her by insinuating that because she was pregnant she couldn't stand on her own two feet. I was so taken aback, as I was trying to be polite (I'm usually the only person on the entire freaking train to offer my seat to a mom-to-be!) and she was downright nasty. A "No thank you, I prefer to stand." would have sufficed.
I just told myself she was hormonal and uncomfortable - but in reality, she was a total "see you next tuesday!"
p.s. I laughed my eye makeup off at the Book Cellar last night. It was my 5th year to attend and I swear I laughed the harder than any previous year!
While at Disney World, my husband witnessed a completely unprovoked verbal attack on a server. A man walked up to the counter for breakfast and made his order, punctuated by comments such as "do it now" and "what are you, stupid?" When it was his turn, my husband went up to the completely shell shocked server and said "I'd like two breakfast platters, please." The simple act of saying please resulted in him coming back to our table with enough food for 6 people.
ReplyDeleteWhile driving through West Virginia at about 4 am on our way to the beach, a pick up truck came up behind our car and got so close to the back bumper that we couldn't see the headlights any more.We were going at least 5-10 mph over the speed limit. He would not relent. The fast lane was wide open and he could have passed us at any time. I sped up a little to try and get some distance between cars - he kept right on our bumper. I changed lanes - he changed lanes. I changed lanes again, he followed. It was absolutely terrifying. This went on for a good 10 miles or so. He finally got off the highway and as he pulled on to the off ramp, almost side swiped our car before turning his wheel hard to navigate the turn. Thank god there weren't more cars on the road. We have no idea why this guy had decided to play with everyone's life by driving so aggressively - but it was a true ass hat thing to do. If we didn't think he was going to murder us, we would have pulled over completely and because we were in the mountains cell phone reception was little to non existent.
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