Summer of Discontent

Let me just warn all of you that this is a long, rambling post. I apologize. Come back to it if you don't have the time, but please. Come back.

This summer has just been off. With the twins' potty training and J-man becoming ever more mobile, this has been my most difficult summer on record. I'm terrified to go anywhere outside the house because one or both of the twins may pee themselves because of being too scared to use a public bathroom and J-man may go ape for not being able to run around. So here I am, at home, all the time, watching the news.

The news. The fabulousness that is the news. Murdered mothers. Babies cut from wombs. The never. ending. war. Oil prices. Food prices. Bank foreclosures. It's enough to make us as a society snap. And I think we have. This summer.

Batman has the right idea. If you're going to fight for justice, for the oppressed, and battle the wrong-doer, do it in disguise. That way, when you come out the other end looking like a dumb ass, no one can identify you.

In addition to being a coal miner's granddaughter, I'm also a policeman's daughter. My father was a patrolman for 22 years. Over the years, I've heard about a few of his more hair-raising experiences. I don't know if it's having his shadow over me or that I watched too much T.J. Hooker as a child, but I hate it, despise it, when I see someone being wronged. When I see someone acting like a complete douche bag, expecting everyone to bow and scrape in their wake and give them extra anything, simply because they feel entitled to have everything faster, sooner, better than everyone else because they feel they're better than everyone else, it seriously pisses. me. off.

I used to suffer from really bad road rage but when I saw the consequences of that in the media, I stopped flipping people off and honking my horn. I now mutter under my breath. Over ten years ago, the Ty-man and I were leaving a local mall when we saw mall security racing across the parking lot after a man who was running like hell. We stopped the car and chased the guy down, holding him until mall security got there. That was a good feeling. Since then, I've kept my mouth shut every time I've been needlessly cut off, nearly rear-ended, broken in front of in line, or treated with a callousness I didn't deserve because I've seen what can happen to you if you shoot off your mouth to someone who is "entitled." But last Wednesday, that all ended.

Ty-man and I went to see Dark Knight and the earliest showing gave us 90 minutes of waiting. As we left the theater ticket window and walked toward the parking lot, we witnessed a woman in a short, compact car slowly passing the front of the theater. Behind her was an irate man, jerkily breaking behind her and gesturing. He finally swerved around her, cutting her, and traffic in the opposing lane, off while his significant other calmly got out of the passenger side of the car. After she got out, he sat.

I had had it. Yet again, some idiot thought he was entitled to two more feet of space and all the wait time in the world while everyone else waited on him and had to go out of their way to get around him. The whole scene played out and I decided I was going to do something about it. So, I walked over to his side of the car and loudly knocked on the window.

Me: Sir, did you know you’re blocking traffic?

Him: Shut up, you stupid c@#$!

Me: Oh, that’s really original.

And that’s when it happened. He spit. At me. In my eye. And drove off quickly, nearly running over my right foot.

I was stunned. Absolutely stunned. I turned and watched him drive away and read his license plate number. I picked up my phone to call the police and looked to my right to see Ty-man. Halfway across the parking lot. Embarrassed by what I had done. I yelled, “I’m calling the police!” and he responded, “No! You started it! What are they going to do?”

My husband was embarrassed. And wanted to leave. I was stunned. And wanted to do something, but unsure of what. I put my phone in my purse and followed, wiping the spit from my eye and off my cheek.

As we drove to Barnes & Noble, I become more distraught. By the time we got to the bookstore, I was wrung out. I went to the women’s bathroom and found myself in a stall, sobbing quietly so the woman and her child two stalls down wouldn’t hear me. All I could think was That man spit at me. He spit at me. He spit at me. Ty did nothing. He called me a c@#$ and he spit at me. Ty was ashamed. He didn’t stand up for me. I’m alone. I’m all alone. No one will stand up for me. He spit at me. He spit at me. Over and over and over again. I calmed down and went to the quietest corner of the store – the paranormal section, wouldn't you know - and there I sat, back to the corner, crammed as small as I could be in that one corner, staring at the carpet and a book I had picked up. Ty eventually came over and we left. Not a word was spoken. We returned to the theater for the movie and as we sat in the darkened theater, Ty said he was sorry for not doing anything. I didn’t respond except to start crying again.

I didn’t fully process the movie. It was a good movie, that much I registered. But all I could think was what ran through my head at the book store. And that I was an idiot for doing what I did. That I deserved what I got. That I was an embarrassment. That I risked my life for something as stupid as that. That he could have some sort of disease that I now have because of the spit in my eye. And I cried through the movie. I’m sure the people around me thought I was crying over Heath Ledger. We left for a silent drive home and a silent preparation for bed. All I knew was that I couldn’t close my eyes because all I could see was him spitting at me and I knew that I couldn’t get into bed with a man who didn’t stand beside me.

When Ty discovered I had gone downstairs, he followed, and what I said to him was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to say to him. Ever. I had to tell him that he hurt me, and that his action spoke as loudly as the man who spit at me, and that what had happened to me had changed me. Forever. Now I know why no one responds to a woman who cries “Rape!” or to a person who screams “Murder!” because a simple response to some asshat entitling himself to two more feet of pavement got me something I didn’t want. It gave me the realization that I’m a woman who can’t defend herself against anyone, with no one to come to her defense.

Ty profusely apologized. He called the police. We filed a report and forwarded the license plate number that is burned onto my synapses for all time. I’ve received a call back that the case is being followed, but that it’s my word against his, with no witnesses. I was asked why I didn't call the doctor or call the police when it happened. My only response was When I realized my husband was embarrassed, I just shut down. I wanted to hide.

I’ve told Ty how I feel and I’ve been very angry this last week. I'm notorious for hanging on to emotions and memories and this will take a while to move past. I'm angry with myself for doing something so foolish. Angry with the man who responded the way he did. Angry at Ty for responding the way he did. And angry with a society that feels entitled to everything. Including the right to spit at one another literally and figuratively and to kill each other over nothing. I've been short and temperamental with my children who don't deserve a mother who yells all the time. I want this resolved. I want that man to know me and know what he's done to me, know that I've learned my lesson well and know that that one action degraded me as a human being.