The other day I stopped at a gas station to use the air pump to inflate one of my tires. The air pump sits between two parking spots designated for the purpose; a man was in one of the spots already, filling his tires, so I pulled into the other one to wait my turn. While he filled his tires, I chatted with him for a moment and then took the hose from him when he was finished.
While I was filling my tire, he pulled out and drove off, and a new car pulled into the now-vacant spot. The man in that car hadn’t even fully parked yet when he rolled down his window and began cursing at me. He started calling me unkind names and said that he was there first. Of course, by this point, I was already putting air in my tire. In retrospect, what I imagine must have happened is that the man didn’t realize there were two spots and was waiting for the first car to leave, which is a perfectly honest mistake to make. I wasn’t in any particular rush; had he caught me before I was already mid-fill I’d have just let him go first.
I just said, “Sorry about that, be done in just a sec!” He continued to scream and yell the entire sixty or so seconds it took me to fill my tire. When I was done, I walked over and cheerfully said “All done! Here you go,” and attempted to hand him the hose. Fuming, he said “Just put it back in the holder.” So I did! Then I said “take it easy,” and got back in my car.
As I started my car and buckled up, he gestured for me to roll down my window. I did, and with a sigh he said, “I apologize for that. I don’t normally behave that way, and I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
I said: “Everyone has a rough day. I’m sorry too if I disrupted your day. Have a good one.” He smiled, and I left.
A lot of times, when someone is aggressive or rude to you for no reason, you won’t get a resolution like this, even if you’re as kind as you can be. Maybe one time in twenty will you get a satisfactory moment to provide catharsis to such an encounter. But you’ll get it zero times in twenty if you match aggression with aggression. No amount of return rudeness would have made me feel better in the long run, and there is no happy ending to that scene if I’d screamed back. Even if he hadn’t apologized, my heart would have been better off knowing I might have planted the seed for a moment like that in the future, even if I didn’t get to see it.
There is a person I used to be, who would have scowled and raged at this post. Good.
The Opportunity Machine 