It isn't something I would recommend in today's volatile climate, but on occasion it becomes necessary: confronting idiots. At my current place of employment, speed bumps were installed in the parking lot. Mainly, it was to keep the pizza delivery drivers for a nearby pizza chain store from running over pedestrians. For the longest time, it was a hazard shoppers were blissfully unaware of, until someone nearly was hit. Then, of course, the speed bumps appeared, and that was the end of it.
Except by now you know it wasn't. Instead of respecting their purpose and slowing down, drivers would pull around them by driving into a loading zone, once again threatening the lives of people just trying to exit the store. Clearly, the five second delay caused by slowing down for a speed bump was too much for these drivers. It was intolerable, but unchangeable.
Enter the drag racers.
These two clowns were speeding around the parking lot, doing doughnuts, peeling out, and otherwise being obnoxious. They were at times driving so close to each other as they passed you could have barely slipped a sheet of paper between them. Like everyone else, they decided the speed bumps were there as a suggestion rather than a rule, and pulled around them into the loading zone, nearly clipping a pedestrian as they did so. To them, this was funny, and so they stopped long enough to roll down their windows and laugh about it.
This infuriated me.
Now, I do not suffer fools lightly, but I do my best to remain professional. My workplace is not in the greatest neighborhood, so we see a lot of the seedier side of society. Common practice is to have as little to do with these people as possible, because you never know if they might be packing a gun. I had had enough of these two, however, because they nearly hit a customer.
I approach the car further from the store and look in, somehow not surprised to see two kids who look like they're still in their teens in each of the two driver's seats, laughing away. Their windows are down and they're yelling and cursing at each other, just like normal teenage boys. The difference, of course, is that these two teenage boys managed to endanger someone's life.
"What's the problem, boys?" I shouted through the window.
"There wasn't no problem 'till you came over here. Why don't you mind your own business, b**ch?"
Now, I don't particularly find that term to be insulting. I have long worked to cultivate a reputation as one who should not be crossed, and so to have two teenage idiots call me that was less an insult to me and more an example of how they lacked creativity. After their asinine behavior, however, I was having difficulty controlling my temper. I did, however, keep enough of my wits about me to reply.
"I would be happy to mind my own business, if you weren't trying to run over my customers with your little street race. Now why don't you and your little girlfriend get your asses out of my parking lot before I go get the three cops sitting at the Starbucks over there to interrupt their coffee break to ticket your asses? I'm sure they'd be more than happy to, since you're such upstanding members of society that you feel a need to threaten the lives of innocent bystanders with your crap-tastic land piloting. This isn't a Fast and Furious movie, moron. This is real life, and in case your mama forgot to tell you, real life has consequences. Now beat it."
I couldn't say for certain if it was the saccharine sweet tone with which I addressed them or the content of my little speech, but they did actually leave once I stepped away. It could have been the threat of the cops. It could have been the fact that I was very obviously one pissed off person. It could have been a tiny shred of decency that whispered maybe they were wrong. I don't know what motivated them to finally leave, but I was very glad they did. And if a part of me likes to believe it was my angry speech that drove them off...? I just tuck that part quietly up to my chest and let it warm me up when I deal with people trying to commit return fraud.
Every now and then, I do get the chance to be awesome. And I enjoy every second of it.