Have you ever declared war on someone whom you never actually met?

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Answers

Absolutely.

For instance - the people who stand in line behind me at the supermarket, muttering to themselves and making a big show of huffing and puffing because they're in such a goddamned hurry. To me this is about as effective as honking your horn in the middle of a traffic jam, and I take great pleasure in torturing them.

First, I'll "forget" to unload the items in my shopping cart until it is actually time for the cashier to ring me up. The huff-puffer will be shifting back and forth, eyeing the empty space on the counter, looking pointedly at my cart and then letting loose with a big angry snort. At that point I'll pick up a copy of the Weekly World News and see what's happening with the latest alien invasion/second coming of Christ/world's fattest toddler/doomsday predictions.

At the last possible moment I will beging to unload my cart, one item at a time. Sometimes the huff puffer will begin to lose it at this point, hyperventilating and doing a little angry dance. When this happens I like to turn around very slowly, look them up and down, raise one eyebrow and continue on with my business.

I declare victory when the huff puffer walks off of my line to stand in another, and I hope like hell that they get the slowest cashier in human history.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

I try to avoid these situations as much as possible, but some people really have it coming.

This one time my boyfriend took me shopping for my birthday (you can guess who's idea this was). He had picked out an outfit for me that he thought was really cute (he's an artist, so he has style and shit). I tried it on in two different colors. While I was doing this he was sitting on a chair directly outside the dressing rooms.

All of a sudden this woman comes up to him and starts bitching him out for being "in" the woman's dressing room. He is really sweet and very unconfrontational, so he just sat there dumbfounded while this woman screamed at him and pretty much made him feel like a total pervert.

I ran out and told her that if I was a fat, nasty, old bitch like her I wouldn't be too concerned about handsome young men peeking at me under the dressing rooms floors.

She shut up then. I felt a little bit bad later, but come on, she deserved it.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Every single time I get into the drive-through bank line. The way my bank is set up, there are two original lanes, which split into three lanes, the closer you get to a teller. It's always a gamble to get into the fastest moving lane, and the guy who was right beside me, who ends up one car length in front of me, becomes my mortal enemy. I hate him. I curse him. I laugh when the person in front of him wants to do three separate transactions, and I feel victorious the whole day through if I make it to the teller before he does.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

I don't think this counts, but I'll share anyway.

I was out walking down the street once, and I saw this woman who was fighting to get her kid (maybe four, five years old) to get into the car. The kid was upset because she didn't want to leave wherever they'd been (I suspect the toy store), and the mom was just screaming at her and finally she started smacking the kid across the face.

I walked over and asked her if she needed some help, she turned around and said no, she's just fine, THANK YOU, in this ultra-bitchy voice like who the hell am I to interfere with her personal issue with her kid. So then I told her if I saw her hit her child one more time I was calling the cops (there was a cop standing right across the street, so this wasn't an idle threat).

She told me it was none of my business what she did with her child, and I shrugged and told her I guessed she was right, as long as it wasn't in front of me.

I really hate getting involved in public confrontations, but I make exceptions when there are children involved.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Jan's answer reminded me of the strangers I want to wage war on the most. I hate, hate, hate when I'm driving behind a car and a small child is standing up in the backseat looking at me! I want to get the car to pull over and bounce the parents' head right off of the windshield. Don't they care if their child is propelled through the windshield or the back window? I swear when I have kids they will be in a carseat until they're 15. Hell, I have a saftey harness for my dog when he rides in the car.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

I have this thing with teenaged boys in cars that are newer, more expensive, and supposedly more high performance than mine. I hate them with a passion 'cause I really don't believe that any of these boys have earned their cars. So I like to race them. They're not that hard to entice, myself being a cute 20 year old blond in a red sports car. Then I take of and injure their puny male egos by beating the crap out of them. I know, it's unfair and slightly paranoid but I hate people who flaunt what they didnt' even earn.

Oh and by the way, Jan, if that woman was hitting her child in the face, that is technically child abuse and not an acceptable punishment. You go girl!

--Karen

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

Um, yes. Regularly.

There's a lot of road construction going on around where I live, so we get construction-related backups. There are always people who get onto the shoulder to pass up the rest of us, because, you know, their time is *so much more valuable* than ours. When they try to creep back into the line of cars farther on down the road, I will not let them in. Ever.

Bastards.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

I live in New York, and if anyone else out there has experienced the subway system in NY, You'll know exactly where I'm coming from. I could fill this entire forum with stories. Ok, I was sitting on the train, and there was about 3 inches of space between the man I was sitting next to and myself. Well, this woman gets on, and decides to throw her full body weight on top of us. Uh, hello? Ever hear of the word excuse me? So, she squeezes in with this total attitude, and half of my upper body is pinned against the wall. I move my shoulder forward and say, "Excuse me". She decides to shove me with her shoulder, and retort (very nastily) "Yeah, EXCUSE ME". That did it. I said, "Look, you're the one trying to fit that big ass in a space where it does not belong. The laws of physics do apply to you too, sweetheart." Her lame reply was, "Maybe if you would move yours over." uh, yeah. I don't know where I was supposed to move to, maybe onto the lap of the woman sitting to my left. I think her visual perception was a bit off. She kept seeing space where there was none. She was pretty embarrassed though, because the man to her right thought my comment about her ass was hilarious.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

Jan's comment about child abuse got me thinking about this mother and her 5 or 6 year old boy that are on my bus after work. I usually end up sitting at the front of the bus, but once I was stuck behind them. The mother is probably in my age-range (25-30), and she is constantly listening to a walkman. Her kid is one of those that will kneel up on the seat and stare at the person behind him, which drives me nuts. The mother does nothing, probably because he's quiet. When the bus gets to the terminal, the kid decides that he wants to get off, and he throws a fit. Every single day. He screams and cries and argues to the point where *I* want to slap him ("I don't want to be onthis bus ANY more! I'm getting off right now!"), but the mother usually tries to threaten him into being quiet (If you don't stop this right now..."). The other day, she told him to "sit down and shut up." I want to go to the back of the bus where she sits and say "Lady, if you took your walkman off and talked to the kid instead of ignoring him, maybe he wouldn't act up!" I think ignoring a child is just as bad as smacking him.

I figure that if the kid wants to get off the bus so bad, pick a spot where you're far enough from home that it's a tough walk, and then say "Ok, you want to get off, we're getting off." and then walk home. My mother did that to me once when we were taking the bus, and I never acted up on the bus again. And I NEVER turned around to look at the people behind me. It's just too rude.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

MORE!! I love these stories. I only did stuff like that when I was waiting tables and it would usually bite me in the ass because I'm guessing that after you scold someone, your tip isn't as good as it would've been before. That's just speculation though.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

I was in a restaurant a couple years ago. I was sitting down with a friend when I saw a guy hit his girlfriend. I bolted out of the booth and walked right at him and interrupted to ask why he felt the need to abuse her. She looked like a little flower.

The guy apologized to me, but I said I was going to kick his ass if he didn't apologize to her instead. My friend came up (he's a big dude) behind me, so the guy mumbled it and they sat down at a table quietly.

My friend said to me how amazed he was that I jumped all over the guy.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

People in grocery lines bother me too. It's called an express lane and the sign says "under ten items", not "approximately 35 items". If you really need to be in that line, don't get three packages of tampons. Just get the one for now, 'kay?

Don't even get me STARTED on drivers. I sometimes ask my boyfriend to slide his car over so that people can't sneak up on the shoulder.. and I've done just that in my piece of shit car on a road that was not quite two lanes and often got backed up beyond where the right-turn-lane started.

When I was a waitress, it used to make me sick when people would bring their teeny babies and toddlers into the smoking section. I mean, if you want to poison your lungs, go for it, 'cos I know I do it too, but please don't subject a tiny baby who can't sit somewhere else or even ask you to stop to the same!

And people who stare on the bus. Man that pisses me off. I don't think I'm that big of a freak, okay? And how hard is it to move to the goddamn back of the bus when people have to stand? I don't get why people don't want to just move! And when people are blocking the whole lane where I need to walk to get off the damn bus and "excuse me" does nothing. Chrikey.

Okay I gotta stop before I get all riled up and go kick some random person's ass!

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2000

Usually not, though I can relate to bank-line-angst and hating rude- shoulder-driving-assgnaws (I don't let them in either, and I'm usually Ms. Overly Polite Driver). I HATE unsafe / impolite / stupid drivers! I emit a running commentary when I am driving...supposedly it's quite entertaining, but to me, it just sounds like a lot of griping, pissing and moaning. Your call.

I waitressed too, and have the patience of Job. Apparently. I'm just sayin'. Because I survived it and went back for more and earned pretty good tips. I never broke it down to the point where I was thinking "Okay, this table will only tip me a dollar, max...", I just went for bulk quantity. I often didn't count the tip. I only got stiffed twice over the years, and I didn't take it personally. That's the key to staying satisfied, I think--not counting the tips as you do--because if you sit there and reflect "I just earned $2 (and 38 goddamn pennies) to wait on those jerks? Fuck this crap!", you will be a surly waitron and surly waitrons get bad tips. It's not a job for everyone.

Now I figure I can stand anything for 30 minutes. It's both helped and hindered me in the Real Working World in that I won't ever get fired for lipping off or copping a 'tude, and I'm more than willing to jump in there and take care of something if I think I can do it...but I put up with incredible amounts of bitchery and rudeness that I should NOT put up with at all.

Most recent battle with a stranger: I'm at Music Midtown in Atlanta and there are thousands of people jostling about (moo! moo! baa! baa!) and one guy decides he's going to walk alongside me and my friend, but with a little twist--he's going to cup my backside and pretend it's an 'accident'. For, like, way too long. This earned him a punch in the arm and a scolding. He seemed bewildered that I might not like my buns being fondled by some skeevy stranger. He was drunk, of course. But still. I can't believe I pummelled someone, even if they deserved it.

I don't usually react instantaneously like that. I can count on one hand the number of times I have. (I've always been right when I've done so, too bad I don't trust my gut more often, I guess.) I usually think back and say to myself "geez, I shoulda..." and get crabby.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2000

I really hate street crazies. I don't mean the homeless, I mean the strange men and women who walk around cursing at the top of their lungs. There are plenty in my old neighborhood for some reason, and I've become accustomed to having to divert my route home because some random scruffy man is standing in the center of the street with his shirt undone screaming "You motherfuckers! This street is ALL MINE!!!"

The shit freaks me out, man. I want to ignore them, but their language is generally so violent that I'm too afarid to go anywhere near them.

I also hate people who decide to hit on you loudly or obnoxiously as you're strolling down the sidewalk, although I suppose nobody likes that. We had a lot of those too--men who'd say "Hiiii sweetheart" or "lovely" or whatever and if you walked past without acknowledging them would tail you down the street asking what your problem was in a loud and angry tone.

I guess I hate anyone who threatens my feeling of safety.

-- Anonymous, May 29, 2000