I totally cut somebody off in traffic the other day. I didn't mean to, but somehow as these things do, it just happened. The other guy was compeltely nice about it. I waved to him via my rear view mirror, and our lives went on. It was forgotten.
But there are those other moments in life when rudeness creeps in, and you just can't shake it. I've had a couple of them recently.
The first time was back in October, and it was a doozy.
For our anniversary, I decided the thing to do was to take my country music fan wife to the Brad Paisley concert at the Virginia Beach amphitheater. And while Brad himself was most entertaining, our night was sort of spoiled by the self styled urban cowboy sitting in front of us.
There he was doing his best Hoss Cartwright, complete with the ten gallon cowboy hat. As though it were invisible. We couldn't see anything because our line of sight to center stage was absolutely obscured by this fool's fedora.
Donna, who is much nicer than me, very kindly and politely asked if he'd consider removing the offending hat. At that moment, the fellow on the other side of me chipped in, saying that he couldn't see either.
Well, the guy went ballistic. He rudely told my wife, "Last time I checked, this is a country and western show!" And, as if that weren't enough, he turned to my neighbor and menacingly and most likely drunkenly muttered something about, "If you don't like it, let's step outside and we'll settle it."
This wasn't a child, mind you. This was a full grown man.
In the end, nobody wanted to fight, get thrown out of the amphitheater and waste $90 worth of tickets. So we suffered through this bozo and his stupid Stetson.
Anyway, let's flash forward to this past weekend, and the Holidays in the City parade in downtown Norfolk. My little family and I, along with some friends, arrived good and early and set up camp on Boush Street. At 5:30pm, 90 minutes before the festivities commenced we were there, with our little fold-out chairs, ready.
Then, moments before it began, two women appeared, and decided to stand in the approximately 18 square inches of open concrete to my immediate right. In other words, directly in our line of sight as the parade made its way around the World Trade Center.
Once again it fell to nice ol' Donna to kindly ask if the ladies might take a small step back so that we might see.
And much to my suprise, without hesitation, they did.
I'm not sure what the moral to the story here is. But I guess you could say, in the jerk department, I'm one for two lately. And all things considered, that's not a bad batting average.
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