Yeah I’m prone to anger and breathtaking rage myself, but for many years I’ve been the outlier and fight a daily battle to maintain my calm in the face of what I perceive to be insane stupidity.
I’m beginning to wonder if I’m an outlier anymore. If I’m “normal” then things are way worse than I thought.
Yesterday on a walk with Jesse I was waiting to cross the road to begin climbing the hill to home. Jesse hadn’t slept well the night before. His stomach was making all kinds of noises, growling, gurgling, and he just didn’t seem to be comfortable. He spent a lot of the night with his head on my arm and every time he shifted around to try to get comfortable, I’d wake up and try to sooth him, making sure he didn’t need to go outside.
Earlier in the evening we’d been playing and he upchucked then he didn’t really want to play anymore. Instead curled up on the couch next to me while I watched some TV.
He’d not been all that thrilled with our walk and turned us toward home at about the 1 mile mark. Since we usually walk almost 3 miles I took it as a sign he was still not feeling well.
So there we are standing at the side of the road, I’m scratching his head while waiting for a truck and a Cadillac SUV to pass. Jesse was impatient so I had him short leashed to keep him from stepping out onto the pavement.
Honestly I was kind of zoned out, worried about him, but just standing there. As I watched the two vehicles approach I noticed the Cadillac was right on the trucks bumper and thought to myself that’s gotta be annoying as hell for the guy in the truck.
The truck made a right turn and the Cadillac accelerated.
At that moment a phone call buzzed my pocket, and Siri announced the call, asking if I wanted to accept. I was wearing my AirPods listening to a podcast and instead of letting go of Jesse to fumble my phone out of my pocket to decline the call, I shook my head. As expected Siri sent to call to voicemail.
While I’m crossing the road, I realize the Cadillac had stopped on the bridge and some guy is screaming out the window… At me?
I pause the podcast and listened…
Amongst all the nonsensical obscenities I manage to figure out this guy is upset because I shook my head.
REALLY?
He’s wound his panties in a bunch because I shook my head?
My breathtaking anger uncoiled because this moron was just wrong!
He needed a good old fashioned ass-kicking and to have his teeth knocked down his throat. Maybe both arms broken so he couldn’t jerk off for six to eight weeks while he sat in his daddies house whining about whatever he could whine about.
I think this kind of thing is why God didn’t give us telekinesis. I know if I’d had that ability at that particular moment, I’d have flipped his shitty Cadillac off the bridge and into the wash with him in it. I might have slammed the vehicle up and down a few times for good measure.
From what I could hear, he thought I was making comment on his driving.
Well I had, internally. But I’d not done anything other than dismiss a phone call I didn’t want to have while humping myself back up the mountain.
A familiar whine brought me back. Jesse was looking at me as if to say, “Come on Dad I want to go home.”
I turned the podcast back on and kept walking.
I was confused. What would make someone so nuts? Unless, he knew he’d been an asshole tailgating, and I triggered his self introspection & guilt.
Ironically, he was in such a hurry that he needed to be on someones bumper, but had the time to come to a full stop on a bridge to lose whatever time he thought he’d gained by yelling at a complete stranger for nothing other than shaking their head.
Seems to me the problem was his, so I’m glad I didn’t make it mine.
One day, unless he changes and grows up, he might encounter someone just as angry who’s more of an asshole, and also carrying a gun. At which point, best case he’ll have that expensive back window shot out. Worst case he’ll catch a bullet.
Either way, it’ll be 100% on him, and quite possibly well deserved.
Now in my calmer state I’m thinking, maybe he was having a bad day, and wanted someone to share in his misery. Maybe like me, he’s got some anger issues that he’s not learned to keep in check.
Perhaps it’s better to take the high road…
But there’s a part of me that would really have enjoyed seeing him bloody.
I’m encountering stuff like this frequently these days. I’m not looking for it, I’m just going about my daily activities and encountering people who are all right on the raggedy edge of decency and self control.
My family says things are very different where they live.
This kind of thing never used to happen in my small mountain town. It was a place where I could avoid almost all of the nut jobs in the city and could work on my own personal Zen.
The fact that I am encountering this kind of thing so frequently, even here, possibly indicates that the crazy has come to town and it’s time for me to go somewhere else.