I read in someone's blog recently about how they seemed to offend people without even trying. That things happened unexplicably to them, mysteriously and randomly. I suffer from the same disease. A few years back, I pulled out in front of a little old lady (in her opinion -- I had plenty of time and space). She followed me to the post office, where she blocked me into my parking place, walked over to my window and proceeded to launch the most vicious four letter words at me that I have ever heard come out of a person's mouth. I politely asked her to not use language like that in front of my child (I had Christian with me) and she said, "I DON'T GIVE A *bleep!*" and carried right on with her spouting. I did manage to get her license number and called the police, but they wrote her off as a crazy. Probably right.
The other day, I was in one of my mad rushes from hither to yon, picking up one child, taking another somewhere. I looked down & realized that I was pretty near out of gas, so I pulled into the nearest station I could find, a skanky place that has been there for a few hundred years, so old that it doesn't even have pay at the pump. Of course, as soon as I started filling up, Melanie started screaming, "Potty! Potty!" so I dispatched Lisa to take her inside. A few seconds later, they came out, saying there was no bathroom. I went inside to pay for my gas, and asked if they had a rest room, or if the Chicken King next door had one. For some reason this was totally offensive to the little old man who worked behind the counter (the owner?) He started spouting off at me about how sick & tired he was of people coming in and pestering him for a restroom. That he had no restroom, and "I have had it up to here with people coming and jumping all over me about not having a rest room" ... blah blah blah.
It took me a minute to realize that he was ranting at me, and I said, "I'm so sorry, but when you have a four year old who has to go, she has to go now .. ha ha ..." But his sense of humor had retired long long ago. He continued to rant and rave at me, and I said, "Well, you've certainly lost me as a customer, there is no call for this ..." and he says, "Good! I don't want your type coming in here raising cain ..." I took my credit card and ran out, shoving the door open kind of hard. This old coot then came running out after me, yelling all the while, running behind the car and taking down my license plate number. "You messed up my door! Yes you did, I have witnesses! I'll get you for messing up my door!" I said, "I did no such thing..." but he kept yelling. I got in the car lickety split and drove off. I didn't know what to do other than call 911. By this time I was hyperventilating and crying, out of my mind scared. The kids are all sitting in the car pie eyed scared. The 911 operator told me to go to the police station. After dropping the kids at home, I went to the station.
The officer listened to my story, then nodded and said, "Yes, ma'am, we were actually just there with an ambulance, a report of a man who was having trouble breathing had to be transported to the hospital after a dispute with a customer. I guess that would be you, hmm?" I told him what had happened, and he nodded as if to say, "Yep, he was just another crazy..." I've since heard from other people that they've had run-ins with this old codger before, so it's not just me. He's just plain nuts.
Good grief! Now I keep checking the obituaries to see if I killed him. And all just because Melanie had to pee.
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