Thursday, February 25, 2010

Compromising My Blogging Integrity


You're My Brother and I Love You...
but for the love of all things holy, shutup!
I asked nicely, really I did.
An untrained eye wouldn't have even seen
the glint of "or I swear to god
I will stab you in the neck with my knitting needle."
Originally uploaded by reallyct
So, even though I know a lot more about this guy (what he looks like head-on and his name), after an especially poorly-timed walking out the door "discussion" with devoted partner, I am erring on the side of not having this flucktard show up on my doorstep threatening to bean me in the head with a can of Schlitz.

Apparently there was a gruesome murder/attempted suicide that happened in Westchester the other day. I wouldn't have known about it because I selectively listen to 1010WINS and since people are always killing other people, I can kind of drown it out. Fortunately, this guy, who I'm going to call "Fredo" so you can sort of understand the level of esteem I hold him in, knew the family involved and was re-telling the gruesome details to his friend on the phone. Next to me. On the train. In what I would conservatively estimate was 45% louder than a normal speaking voice. While, I like a good hanging stabbing story as much as the next girl, I decided that this was not appropriate public behavior and, as nicely as I could, asked him if he could please (I used the word please) lower his voice. When he didn't I added that it was kind of an inappropriate and graphic topic for public.

Instead of heeding what was, in all likelihood, my nicest version of what I wanted to say to him, he continued telling his story in his 45% louder than normal voice.

Then he called, literally, 3 other people and told the same story.

In between, he called some buddies so he could gossip about one of their wife/girlfriend's habit of "talking like a man," the remedy for which he described as "punching her like a man." He called maybe 3 buddies and said the above verbatim.

Even the least familiar of you with my particular brand of crazy can probably imagine that it took all my self-control not to talk to this man like a man so that I could precipitate his punching me like a man which would lead to his being incarcerated like a man, and then suddenly learning what it's like to be surrounded by, ahem, those more manly than one in a prison-type situation.

I really weighed the consequence: my broken jaw for his difficulty sitting/evacuating for a period of, oh I don't know what you get for first degree assault, but let's say he gets off easy with a year. I still am not sure I made the right decision in not provoking him. I would have enjoyed visiting him in jail and bringing him care packages of vaseline and kleenex. For his tears.

But let's be frank. Any dbag who publicly advocates hitting women who have the gall to, well, talk, is the kind of dbag whose mother probably still folds his underwear. He'd be about as likely to hit me as buy me a new Cadillac. Fredo was about as intimidating as a Jack Russell terrier. Still, I have to wonder about the kind of person who won't shutup when asked to. I knew that after I asked him to lower his voice, he was talking loudly and making multiple phone calls just to annoy me (at one point he moved up one row so we were directly opposite from one another). I know that his choice of conversation topics was aimed at me (you know how I enjoy talking like a man). And I know that the best course of action was to continue silently knitting and not engaging him further.

But it wasn't the fun course of action. Stupid adulthood.

6 comments:

  1. Glad you chose the better part of valor, no matter how obnoxious he was.

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  2. This is why on public transportation I have to have a music player, so I can tune everyone else out. I credit MP3s with my not having a prison record.

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  3. I realize this just adds to my crazy (mystique? cat lady?), but isn't listening to the iPod the cop-out? Remember, you are talking to a woman who once got into a physical altercation with a fellow Bronx Zoo patron over harassing the primates...

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  4. Also, I just know we're going to run into this waste of oxygen on wing night at Davy Byrne's one of these times...

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  5. At least you could tell of the murder story... you've heard it 5 times already!

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  6. http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/freedom.png

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