I had to stop and consider, I did all my twenty twenty hindsight in the blink of an eye. I discarded “Discretion is the better part of virtue” for “That shit just ain’t worth it.” Same outcome different attitude. Wasn’t really any discretion involved, I always walk away from stupid shit like this, but there was something about the guy, about my mood, about the general malaise that wraps like a shawl around these hallowed halls.
Ok, so I’m at this convenience store that’s also very close to campus, and unlike the seven eleven of lore from felony flats, convenience stores here can and do sell hard alcohol. So the place is crowded with students and I’m on my way to grandwhelp sit and I’m stopping off for a couple of smart waters (water fortified with electrolytes) and a polish sausage, in a bun, with mustard. These two obvious undergrads (um, not trying to be offensive, both their age and the conversation they were having about real estate and amortized loans suggested, um, theoretical understanding, that and they were getting a fifth of red hot cinnamon schnapps) are checking out at the next register.
And this Harold and Kumar fuck (I don’t remember which is which, but this kid looks just like the one that isn’t Asian, and I’m not saying all Indians/paki’s look alike at all, I’m just saying this kid has dudes face and expressions) looks at me and, swear to god, says “Dude, I got to be honest, your mustard is grossing me the fuck out.” In real time honest-to-god twenty twenty hindsight walking away and ignoring him was and still is the only thing that makes sense. I, um, to my shame, sized him up, twice, so he knew when I walked away I was dismissing him as too small a fish to keep.
Why? Because it’s kind of important. I don’t think a motherfucker like me demands your respect just for checking out of a convenience store with a hotdog, but there’s motherfuckers like me who think so, and if you’re going to talk silly shit to motherfuckers like me you might wanna consider one of them sooner or later is going to flatten you out where you stand.
The issue, if I had had one, would have been respect. Almost a year ago I was much closer to teaching this chick that lesson. Long explanation short; she hit my jeep because she seemed to think I hadn’t seen her jogging in the dark in her dark clothes and pulled into the crosswalk to allow her behind instead of leaving the killing crosswalk (if I hadn’t seen her) as a baited trap. She hit my fucking car and yelled something that was probably an insult. The Jeep is a grand Cherokee with privacy glass everywhere except the windshield and front windows.
I’m just saying for all she knew in her little misplaced three mile an hour road rage I had five comfortably seated armed guys in the back. She hit my fucking Jeep. Granted angry little jogging fists would have to really pick a spot and focus to even leave a dent but that’s not the point. And it’s not the point with Harold and or Kumar and what does and doesn’t gross him out. The point is don’t be aggressive to people who can kick your ass.
Granted, I’m a pacifist, but I’m also, very obviously, a wolf in wolf clothing in the sheep pasture; the assumption that I’m a vegetarian wolf is not a wise assumption (perhaps a bad analogy, I’m fine with eating lamb chops, I just don’t usually kill the lamb myself. Mutton is a bit gamey.). The point is when you are buying cinnamon schnapps it’s best to keep your gross out opinions to yourself. When passing a jeep that could hide enough Seals to secure this whole town, no smacking of the quarter panels. And perhaps the kinder gesture would be to have the vegetarian wolf teach that lesson, before the hungry wolf does.
I guess the added dimension that usually makes this so much water off a ducks back, is that I’m not my easy going self of late, and eating a sheep or two sure would relieve some tension. I’m really not in much danger of lighting a motherfucker up though, much as I’d like too. All pacifism aside, the other guy always has to swing first and I always give people a way out, at least three times, not just from fights, but arguments and other things they will regret. It’s not because I’m a bad ass, though I think the grandwhelp could have taken either the Harold and Kumar motherfucker or the skinny midnight jogging bitch, it’s because I fight so very rarely and when so very provoked (and/or but mostly or, when someone is in danger of getting hurt beyond the little damage I will do) that I don’t use rules. Quick, dirty, and usually ending in a restraint with me whispering in the ear (Let me know when you’ve calmed down and I will let you go).
See? I’m a much nicer wolf, but I’m not wearing grannies nightgown or dentures or reading glasses. Wolves are pretty much dogs; don’t start nothing and there won’t be nothing.
I made a joke of this later with the grandwhelp, all evening we’d puff out our chests at some imagined slight and say “How you like my mustard now?”
The guy with Harold or Kumar was a big enough of a sheep, but I’m guessing he’s tired of having dudes back. Harold or Kumar would have been wise, and hence ok with the rest of his life if after the second time I sized him up he had the good sense to, at bare minimum say “Sorry, I just don’t like mustard.” Make it about the mustard. It probably was about the mustard. It also was an area with 45 thousand drunken undergrads, many of whom have given swirlies and locked motherfuckers in lockers for offenses much less than besmirching a fellow’s mustard.
I still don’t know what the jogging chick’s problem was. Harold and Kumar was just a pissy little annoying fellow who will likely wake up this morning in his own vomit. The jogging chick hit my fucking jeep. I pulled into the crosswalk because any sensible jogger at midnight would run behind the half ton of lethal acceleration. She was pissed that I didn’t leave her enough crosswalk. I mean I think. I was honestly a little too shocked to have anything but hindsight about that one. The last car I owned when I lived in this area, I would have, at bare minimum, demanded her insurance, in such a way as to provoke her further. She didn’t even leave much of a print in the dust on the jeep. I’m just saying; she took the first swing. And, again, beyond all reason, she swung at an SUV covered in privacy glass, not having a thought for who might be in there, how many, their state of sobriety or intolerance for jeep punching smartass joggers, or, and much more to the point, especially for this area, how rapey they might be feeling. To add stupidity to stupidity, the jeep doesn’t have local plates. There were no other witnesses. Bad, bad, bad idea. Even given what the world considers the American impairment for irony; no tombstone ever says “Yeah, but I was right”.
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