Stranger Danger: who did you just flip off?

True story.

One day I was driving to work when a car passed me on my left and the guy gave me the finger and then roared off.

Absolutely no idea what I’d done to deserve an obscene gesture, so while I was confused about the nature of my vehicular faux pas (had I unintentionally cut him off?) my Pissed-Off-O-Meter immediately went to 11, not only because he flipped me off, but also because of the way the guy dressed.

No idea what he was wearing from the waist down – maybe a kilt or a grass skirt – but the parts I could see revealed he was chubby, wearing a shirt and tie and his shirt was one of those blue ones with a white collar and cuffs that were and maybe are favored by lawyers, bankers and assorted fuckwits who take themselves too seriously and consider themselves Gordon Gekko Fanboys.

But that’s not what flipped my switch and this is:

He was also wearing pink suspenders.

One more time for the hard of reading:

HE WAS WEARING PINK SUSPENDERS!!!

If he’d been wearing an eye patch and displaying neck tattoos and giving off the general vibe that he had just been paroled from prison and was currently working as head of security at a meth lab, I’d have been more accepting of the obscene gesture.

That kind of guy is scary and I probably would have mentally rolled over and showed him my belly as a sign of submission.

Hey, if Snake Plissken is your fashion consultant, feel free to flip me off and tell me to go fuck myself and I probably won’t do anything about it, with the exception of thinking mean thoughts about your IQ scores and the childhood trauma which turned you into an flaming asshole, all of which I’ll be too intimidated to share.

But if you look like Wayne Knight late for a meeting, maybe you ought to keep the obscene gestures to yourself. (And if Wayne Knight is a tenth-degree Black Belt, my apologies because I don’t want to get my ass kicked by this guy.)

Under the heading “There Ought To Be A Law” flipping people off while wearing pink suspenders should at the very least be a misdemeanor if not a felony: you can flip people off or wear pink suspenders, but you should be legally prohibited from doing both at the same time. 

So when we hit a red light (and I’m guessing Mr. Middle Digit didn’t plan that out very well) I rolled up behind him and bumped his car forward with my car because his car was a BMW and my mine was a piece of shit Saturn and after that nudge he looked into the rearview mirror with eyes the size of half-dollars (can’t remember, but I hope I was wearing my Ray Bans so I’d look more intimidating) and at that point I considered getting out of my car and walking up next to his and tapping on the window and telling him to get the fuck out so we could settle our dispute.

And then I thought, “What if Wayne carries a .38 in his briefcase that he’s been dying to use and now I’ve finally given him an excuse?”

I wanted him to know he didn’t know who he was fucking with, but then it belatedly occurred to me that I didn’t either.

Pretend Tough Guys

Go to any sporting event and some fans feel comfortable shouting insults from the stands, which always strikes me as chickenshit because it’s easy to be a Pretend Tough Guy when you know athletes can’t respond. But once in a while a fan forgets the difference between being a Pretend Tough Guy and a real one and to make my case, I give you Charles Barkley.

According to the Florida Sun Sentinel:

Back in 1997 when Charles was still playing for the Houston Rockets, he went to a bar with some friends and people recognized him and he was signing autographs and a guy named Hugo Lugo spotted him and started shouting insults and Charles ignored him and then to get Barkley’s attention, Lugo threw a glass filled with ice in Chuck’s direction.

Lugo’s lawyer claimed it wasn’t Lugo, but whoever threw it, the glass hit a woman with Charles and in return Charles wound up throwing Lugo through a bar window. (A later story said Lugo was charged with misdemeanor battery for throwing a glass filled with ice, so I guess the cops didn’t believe his lawyer either.)

OK, whether or not Lugo threw the glass, nobody seems to dispute that he was yelling insults at Barkley and here’s the thing that sticks out in my mind:

Hugo Lugo was 5 feet, 2 inches tall and weighed 110 pounds.

Charles Barkley was 6 feet, 6 inches tall and weighed 252 pounds.  

The question “Just What The Fuck Were You Thinking?” immediately springs to mind. But sports fans get used to yelling all kinds of tough guy stuff from the stands and then every once in a while one of them forgets they’re not in the stands anymore and thinks they can get away with being a tough guy in person.

Here’s what Barkley had to say about it:

"What [police and witnesses) said happened, happened. What he did was inappropriate. I'm going to defend myself. Let there be no debate. If you bother me, I'm going to whip your ass. The guy threw ice in my face, and I slammed his ass into the window. I'm not denying that. I defended myself. He got what he deserved."

After Chuck threw Lugo through the window he added:

"For all I care, you can lay there and die."

According to a YouTube video, at his trial the judge asked Charles if he had any regrets and Charles said:

“Yeah, I regret we were on the first floor.”

There are lots of Pretend Tough Guys in the world and things can go sideways when a Pretend Tough Guy doesn’t understand he’s screwing around with a real one.

Texas, it’s a Whole Other Country

So I’m in Boston with a friend of mine from Texas and let’s call him “Bill” because that’s his real name. Bill played football and boxed, plus he’s got an extremely low bullshit threshold so you don’t want to screw around with him.

Anyway…

People in Boston didn’t think anything of flipping people off or yelling fuck you and a couple times I had to talk Bill out of walking over and opening a Can of Whup Ass (I speak fluent Texan) which he was inclined to do because – as Bill pointed out – in Texas if someone told you to go fuck yourself that meant they wanted to fight. In Boston it just meant you were taking too long to get going after the light turned green.

So the people in Boston didn’t know who they were fuck youing with and right there is today’s lesson.  

You don’t know who you’re screwing with

All this occurred to me when I read about public confrontations between mask wearers and non-mask wearers.

Give shit to a stranger and you don’t know what barrel of overly-emotional snakes you just jumped into. Maybe some people are like a Pit Bull Rescue Dog whose previous owner wore a red hat and now you show up wearing a MAGA hat or a Chiefs hat and the Pit Bull loses its mind and goes for your throat, which would be fully justified in 50% of the examples I just cited.

So first rule:

Don’t give shit to strangers because you don’t know exactly what emotional problems and barely contained rage you’re dealing with.

And second rule:

If you ignore rule one and give shit to strangers, for the love of God and Good fashion, don’t do it while wearing pink suspenders.