Day 19- Don't Make Me Bitch Slap You!

I proceeded to try to tie one on last night. Got stopped short, as my parents and their friends were ready to retire for the evening at 7:30. Probably a good thing, as I'm not sure I could have found my way home with any more beer. I left the restaurant at that awkward time; too early for the kids to be in bed, too pathetic to down another beer solo. So, I did what any tipsy woman with an hour on her hands would do- I went to Marshalls. You know you're loosened up when you want to try on bathing suits. Really, it counts as the one night stand of the shopping world. You will feel sickened the next day at the indiscriminate choice you made when you weren't in your right head (I thought I looked skinny, but then again, I had beer goggles on.) I was accurate in my pre-game assessment. I couldn't blog after an evening like that.


Don't Make Me Bitch Slap You!

Walk on me. Beat me up. Give me a verbal browbeating and let me have it. Might have been the case for most of my life, but in the last few years, I've changed. It came with the confidence in knowing I'm a pretty sensible person with a decent brain. When things don't look right, I'm gonna cry foul. I'm still new at my new found mouthiness, so sometimes my lips start moving before my brain fires the correct word. But hindsight is 20/20 with all verbal disagreements. It's only later we think of the perfect thing to say.

On Tuesday, I had just picked up Maggie when I ran into my friend Stacy. I was leaving the school yard on my bike, going towards adjacent parking lot. Stacy corralled me and proceeded to mutter something about a woman in the parking lot who had just been shouting at her. The story broke down like this: Stacy had been driving down a highly traveled neighborhood thoroughfare, on her way to pick up her daughter at school. The woman in front of her (BMW lady) was driving the long stretch of road at 10 mph, in a 30 mph zone. Realizing she was going to be late, Stacy passed the woman and continued on her way to school. Apparently, the woman she passed was going to school as well. When Stacy got out of her car
BMW lady was standing there, and accosted her. The BMW lady's complaint was that Stacy shouldn't have passed her in a residential area. Stacy let me know that she listened to the woman and calmly and politely apologized. End of story. Except is wasn't.

As Stacy is walking back to her car, and I am loading the kids in the bike trailer, BMW lady's friend (woman #2) walks up to Stacy at her car and launches into her own tirade of Stacy's "grievous" driving error. What could be garnered by this woman's spiel is that she was behind Stacy and saw the whole thing happen.

This is where me and my big mouth come in. I hightailed the bike and trailer over a hill and across the curb to come to the defense of Stacy. Problem is, I'm like a wound-up chihuahua; lots of growling and snarling, but a small mouth that can't hurt you too much. And this is how it went:

"Well, aren't we perfect! You must be perfect, is that it? Do you always drive perfect ? (and some other crazy shit like that)

"Leave her alone. You've yelled at her enough. Leave her alone. Okay, go bye bye now."

I said all this in one crazy, heated breath as Stacy sunk into her car. I'm not sure she was embarrassed by the women who yelled at her or her lunatic friend that rode in on her bike yelling something about being perfect.

The Dalai Lama would have been proud of Stacy. She was apologetic, cool and collected. She realized the banshee drivers were a little short on patience and brains, and she remained calm. Probably the correct approach in this situation.

But this felt good. It's taken me a long time to learn how to stand up to people, and I would gladly do it again . I was so "nice" for years, and I'm not sure it ever got me any more friends or admiration. It just made me feel powerless. I rode away on my bike a little taller.