“If you touch me I’ll punch you in the face” she screamed at me a half dozen times with her hand curled into a fist and cocked behind her right ear. Little did she realize that touching her was about the last thing I would want to do, for reasons beyond the prospect of being punched.
This went down Wednesday afternoon on the sidewalk on Bowes Street across from the construction going on at the corner of Louisa Street. I was walking on the sidewalk towards the downtown when this e-bike sped up the sidewalk assuming ownership of the right of way. I guess the person operating the e-bike assumed that if they were going fast enough I would jump out of the way. I didn’t, and that created the situation.
Forced to stop at the last moment, or hit me, the e-bike operator was pissed. It didn’t help that the first words out of my mouth was to tell them e-bikes should not be riding on the sidewalk.
What was surprising was who was operating this little red e-bike. It wasn’t some young person with an attitude. It was a woman who seemed to be about 50 years of age, no more than 5’2”, and 100 pounds of anger. And she was threatening to punch me out for making her stop. Actually she was threatening to punch me out if I touched her.
We all do things that ‘break the rules’ in one way or another. We have a choice as to how we respond when confronted with our transgression. Threatening someone with physical violence probably isn’t at the top of the list of suggested responses. It would have been simple enough for the person to explain why they were speeding up the sidewalk, or simply apologize, or simply accept the very short lecture and move on.
Neither of us probably learned a lesson with this confrontation. I’m sure she will continue to ride sidewalks fast enough to scare people out of her way. And I’m sure I’ll continue to not step out of the way and confront these folks. I’m able to move quickly, but there are others who might well get knocked over, and not bounce back up.
And in a short flashback to Hill Street Blues – “Let’s be careful out there”.
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October 3, 2017 at 9:58 am
I’m going to play devil’s advocate.
But first, a story: many moons ago when I was in highschool I had a bad habit of joking with people about them having cancer. Not just out of the blue, mind you. But if I saw someone evidently in a bad mood, I would ask them what was wrong, and then respond with “well, it could be worse, at least you don’t have cancer”! Obviously I had the good intention to encourage them to look on the bright side, but highschool-me thought, for some reason long lost to me now, that it would also add some humour to do that with a cancer joke. So “well at least you don’t have cancer” became a stock phrase of mine. You can see where this is going. What are the odds that I say that to someone who actually does have cancer? Very low on any given day, but over the long-run, pretty much inevitable. And that is, of course, exactly what happened. I ran into a girl – a distant acquaintance at best – who looked obviously distraught, and so I went through my usual routine. “you look so down, what’s the matter?” “Just having a bad day, I’d rather not talk about it” “well, cheer up, at least you’re not dying of cancer!” But of course she had just received the diagnosis that morning. Her reaction is something I’d like to forget.
I bring up that story because I’m about to suggest some scenarios to which your initial reaction might be something like “we could imagine ‘what-ifs’ all day, but what are the odds that any of those were true?” And in a way, that reaction is right. Except when it’s not. The odds have a way of sneaking up on you. Just last month I was talking with someone who was getting angry and frustrated with a contractor who was not coming back to finish the job and was not returning their phone calls. I told them my cancer story and encouraged them to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. They took my advice, and its a good thing too, because as it turns out the guy’s wife actually was in the hospital with a medical emergency, and so his attention had understandably turned away from work.
So what are these devil’s advocate scenarios I’m going to suggest?
Maybe this woman had a legitimate need to be in a hurry. Maybe she was rushing to the bedside of a dying friend, and she was desperate to get there in time to say goodbye and thus had no patience for being delayed by some busybody wanting to lecture them on the rules of the road. Maybe she’d just been told of a family emergency, and she was rushing to help. Or maybe she wasn’t so much in a hurry, maybe she’s just petrified of driving her e-bike on the road (even though she knows its the law) because when she was a child her and her older sister were riding down the decidedly bike unfriendly streets of parry sound when her sister was struck and killed and she was there to watch her die? Or maybe she doesn’t have any particular aversion to driving on the road, but her real fear is of men trying to chastise her? Perhaps she recently escaped from an abusive marriage and when you accosted her, she had a flashback? I mean, we could go on, right? And I doubt I need to go to such extreme examples either: You’re a decent guy, Jo, I’m sure there’s lots of explanations that this woman could have which would inspire your approval and support – explanations to which your response would be “I’m sorry, I had no idea, please, let me help you on your way.” I’m sure there’s lots of those explanations out there, and you could probably imagine more of them than me. And one of them could very well be true.
Or not. It could be the woman is just a jerk. Some people just are. But most are not, which means most have one of those explanations.