Ran into a bit of trouble today

[Scoundrel]

I was doing a deposit at an ATM today. The ATM is inside a Safeway, and there is a sign about 15 feet from the ATM that says "ATM line starts here."

Not long after I started, I became aware of a man standing close behind me. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. I half-turned and gave him the stink-eye for a second, which didn't seem to clue him in. When I finished, I turned to face him, indicated the sign, and said "the line starts over there" (by then there were a couple more people standing behind the sign). I turned and started walking away. He said something to my back, and I heard his voice, but could not make out the words. I kept walking. I stopped at the customer service counter to buy some lottery tickets, which gave him time to do his ATM business and catch up with me at the front door.

I heard his voice behind me again, and this time I clearly heard "Hey, Jackass." I should have kept walking. Of course nobody would be referring to me as Jackass, so he couldn't have been talking to me. But I stopped. He got around in front of me (between me and my car) and started talking in an annoyed voice about how he was in fact the next in line (he had completely missed the point).

At that moment, I should have either made a dismissive grunt and sidestepped around him, or smiled at him and explained that I get uncomfortable when I feel that people are too close behind me at the ATM, in a self-deprecating sort of way. But that's not what I did.

Instead, I matched his tone of voice and body language and told him that there is such a thing as personal space, and that some people don't like it when others violate it, particularly during an ATM transaction, and that he had violated my personal space (note the difference in the wording, and where it places the fault).

Things got more heated from there, with him telling me that I had a problem, me telling him to get out of my personal space right now, etc.

I am thankful that although the testosterone was thick enough to be scented upon the air, he did in fact get out from between me and my car, and we parted ways, still hurling angry words at each other, this time with a row of cars between us, until we both got into our cars. We exited the parking lot in different directions.

The good news is that this ended without coming anywhere near the point at which I would have had to make a choice about deploying a defensive weapon.

The altercation brought several points home to me:

1. I should have remained completely calm, despite the swarthy ugly dude getting in my personal space twice and being clueless. If this had escalated, witnesses would have reported hostility on both sides, and that would not have gone well for me in the end.

2. I did not once think of the pepper spray hanging on my keychain, tucked into my belt under my jacket. My mind was on something else attached to my belt. I should have kept both options in mind for possible deployment.

3. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, calls his CCW a "politeness enforcer". He clarifies this by saying that the CCW forces him to remain polite in cases where he might not otherwise do so, because he knows how important it is to avoid using it. Politeness is a great deterrent most of the time.

Still, I was glad I had it on me. You never know when the swarthy ugly dude is going to turn out to be off his rocker completely, with a particular psychotic trigger about being told that he's not in line correctly.

[OldLincoln]

Wow, thanks for the story. As I read it I was thinking "Meet me out behind the gym after school." That is until I read your should haves, which were right on. These days and probably forever, you cannot predict another's actions. You may influence them by yours but even still they are unpredictable. What may be very reasonable to you and me is completely foreign to others.

You know how it's always the second guy in a fight that gets blamed? That holds true for self defense also. You would have been seen as the aggressor in your situation as he simply stood immediately behind you. You spoke to him first and soon you both escalated it, but the witnesses standing behind you both would say you turned and said something to him. Not good for staying out of jail.

That is why I follow your friends position of my gun being a "politeness enforcer" at least of my actions. Even when faced with aggressive rudeness, I tend to chuckle, not get angry.

Once a burly tough guy decided to tell me off and turning my back on him would have been the worse thing to do so I just looked at him and listened intently not saying a word. Finally he ran down, turned and walked away. When anger is not responded in kind, aggressors often cool off and the crises avoided.

[slick slidestop]

Your friend is a wise man. Politeness enforcer is likely to ensure a peaceful outcome.

For me it's one extreme or the other. I usually either ignore them or go totally off like a maniac. You should see there face when I get turrets syndrome....it totally confuses them

[sharpetop]

"An armed society is a polite society!" I don't recall who coined the phrase but it holds true.

[mr surveyor]

avoidance first, de-escalate if necessary, and suck it up and walk away.

never exchange unpoliteness with same and expect to end the event as a hero with your handgun.

unless there was a huge disparity of force, or the other guy was visibly armed and threatening, had you even displayed your sidearm over a pushing match jail might have been in your immediate future.

If you're going to go armed, avoid conflict.


jmo

surv

[wyntrout]

Thanks for sharing your encounter. Been there and sort of done that, too. I had to really think about the consequences and even though I was in the right and the guy was most definitely wrong, I was not law Enforcement and things could only get out of hand, with me getting in really big trouble since I was carrying a concealed weapon(legally). That was one of the worst adrenaline surges I've ever had... really shaking and mad... I could really feel the adrenaline screwing me up big time!

Wynn

[wyntrout]

Had I been trained in self defense like Chuck Norris, I would have taken him up on his offer to "kick my ass" for not minding my own f'ing business. He was speeding in a park and when I reminded him about children and pets in the park, I added "especially with that", indicating the open bottle of beer in his lap.
It was hard to just say "I don't think so" and turn and walk away with my dog, but I could risk getting into an altercation and shooting him! He was around 30 years younger and in really good shape.

Wynn

[Scoundrel]

Wow, thanks for the story. As I read it I was thinking "Meet me out behind the gym after school."

Yeah, it was pretty juvenile. Do we ever truly grow up? It seems like my dad mellowed out for a few years, but then another phenomenon kicks in. After a certain age (and I am sure it varies), people seem to lose what tact and restraint they have gained through the years. My dad is 71 now, and I am the mediator when we all go ATV riding and he has disagreements with my friends.

That is until I read your should haves, which were right on.

I need to work more on turning my "should have dones" into my "have dones". I'm not as bad as Anton 'The Pro' Protopov in the 2011 movie "The Big Bang" ("Sometimes I just... ...react")



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1307873/, but I did respond to the heat of the moment instead of keeping my head on straight.

Once a burly tough guy decided to tell me off and turning my back on him would have been the worse thing to do so I just looked at him and listened intently not saying a word. Finally he ran down, turned and walked away. When anger is not responded in kind, aggressors often cool off and the crises avoided.

This reminds me of a motorcycle trip I took in 2002. I was on Hwy 2 headed East somewhere in the mountains in the lower portion of the Idaho panhandle. I came upon a sign that made me VERY happy. Here is a photo of it:



In Washington and Idaho, there are yellow warning signs on the highways that have a recommended speed for the curves in the road. These recommended speeds seem to be calibrated for bus-shaped motorhomes towing SUVs. The only time I follow those suggested speeds is when I am driving a 9,000 lb motorhome, towing 4,000 lbs of trailer and ATVs behind it. On a motorcycle, I tend to hit those curves at about 15mph above the suggested speed.

On this day, I was feeling particularly frisky, and was hitting those curves at about 20mph over the suggested speed.

I started passing some signs indicating road construction ahead. the really annoying thing about these road construction signs is that they put five or six of them out there, sometimes with a mile between them, and often the signs are left in place when there is no work currently being done. I noted the signs, but maintained my speed.

I rounded a particularly sharp curve at speed with the bike bent way over, and then JUST after the curve straightened up, RIGHT THERE was the flagger and the road work being done. I straightened the bike up and braked hard. I could have dropped most of my momentum and crawled up to the flagger, but I chose instead to make it a longer, smoother deceleration, bringing me to a smooth stop about 10 feet from the flagger.

He was not amused.

The guy looked like a puffer fish and turned beet red. He started screaming at me about whether I saw the damn signs, or what. At first I tried to explain that I was in complete control, but it is difficult to make oneself heard when wearing a full helmet with a chin bar, and I'm sure he was not receptive to whatever I was saying anyway. When he started yelling about how he could call the State Patrol on his radio and have me arrested, I remembered a scene from Star Trek, in which Worf (Klingon Starfleet Officer) was being yelled at by Picard, who was clearly off his rocker, to do something bad. Everyone decided this was a good mutiny moment. Worf folded his arms and stared at a fixed point about a foot above Picard's left shoulder and said nothing.



So that's what I did. Eventually, the puffer fish wound himself down, stared angrily at me for a few seconds, and then flipped his little Slow/Stop sign to "Slow". I put the bike in gear and drove slowly on through the construction zone. I took it easy for the next 30 miles or so, but no State Patrol officer materialized.

[O'Dell]

"An armed society is a polite society!" I don't recall who coined the phrase but it holds true.

Robert Heinlein. One of my favorite science fiction writers when I was a kid. He was also a gun enthusiast. Along with this one Heinlein also coined "There's no such thing as a free lunch" in one of his novels.

[O'Dell]

[QUOTE
This reminds me of a motorcycle trip I took in 2002. I was on Hwy 2 headed East somewhere in the mountains in the lower portion of the Idaho panhandle. I came upon a sign that made me VERY happy. Here is a photo of it:



[/QUOTE]

Nice road. I'd like to take my bike up there.

[wyntrout]

Heinlein was my favorite author, of many. My latest since Heinlein died is David Weber. I love everything he's written or helped write, especially the Honor Harrington series and parallel series.

In 1965 I borrowed a buddy's CL250 Honda and rode down Highway 1 to Big Sur from Monterey, CA, when I was learning Arabic at the Defense Language Institute in 1965... an Army installation. That's one of those top 10 drives. Ah the memories there... 18 and 19 years of age... too young to drink, but did buy my first handgun and shoot it in the park at the top of the hill. Avoided arrest by helping an officer out of a ditch when we were leaving. He was up there looking for me and my buddy... wasn't out in the country. We got restricted to the post for a month or something when he reported us to the Company Commander.

That year I went to the first Laguna Seca Race... saw James Bond's movie car... and the new Chapparal racing for the first time, too.

The most fun I had driving was returning from Italy to Germany through the Alps in my '82 BMW 323i... 6-cylinder 2305cc... hardly any traffic and no ABS then, so had some "fun".

Most of my fun now is when we go to Illinois and I push my van through the mountains around Chattanooga at 15-20 over the "recommended" speed... AWD and ABS... love the pulling AND pushing drive. Also, have some fun going to SW Colorado... lots of mountains and curves, but have to watch for deer, Elk, bears, mountain lions, etc... haven't seen a bear in the wild, yet... which is fine with me.

Wynn

[ripley16]

avoidance first, de-escalate if necessary, and suck it up and walk away.

Sage advice

[sas PM9]

I was doing a deposit at an ATM today. The ATM is inside a Safeway, and there is a sign about 15 feet from the ATM that says "ATM line starts here."

Not long after I started, I became aware of a man standing close behind me. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. I half-turned and gave him the stink-eye for a second, which didn't seem to clue him in. When I finished, I turned to face him, indicated the sign, and said "the line starts over there" (by then there were a couple more people standing behind the sign). I turned and started walking away. He said something to my back, and I heard his voice, but could not make out the words. I kept walking. I stopped at the customer service counter to buy some lottery tickets, which gave him time to do his ATM business and catch up with me at the front door.

I heard his voice behind me again, and this time I clearly heard "Hey, Jackass." I should have kept walking. Of course nobody would be referring to me as Jackass, so he couldn't have been talking to me. But I stopped. He got around in front of me (between me and my car) and started talking in an annoyed voice about how he was in fact the next in line (he had completely missed the point).

At that moment, I should have either made a dismissive grunt and sidestepped around him, or smiled at him and explained that I get uncomfortable when I feel that people are too close behind me at the ATM, in a self-deprecating sort of way. But that's not what I did.

Instead, I matched his tone of voice and body language and told him that there is such a thing as personal space, and that some people don't like it when others violate it, particularly during an ATM transaction, and that he had violated my personal space (note the difference in the wording, and where it places the fault).

Things got more heated from there, with him telling me that I had a problem, me telling him to get out of my personal space right now, etc.

I am thankful that although the testosterone was thick enough to be scented upon the air, he did in fact get out from between me and my car, and we parted ways, still hurling angry words at each other, this time with a row of cars between us, until we both got into our cars. We exited the parking lot in different directions.

The good news is that this ended without coming anywhere near the point at which I would have had to make a choice about deploying a defensive weapon.

The altercation brought several points home to me:

1. I should have remained completely calm, despite the swarthy ugly dude getting in my personal space twice and being clueless. If this had escalated, witnesses would have reported hostility on both sides, and that would not have gone well for me in the end.

2. I did not once think of the pepper spray hanging on my keychain, tucked into my belt under my jacket. My mind was on something else attached to my belt. I should have kept both options in mind for possible deployment.

3. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, calls his CCW a "politeness enforcer". He clarifies this by saying that the CCW forces him to remain polite in cases where he might not otherwise do so, because he knows how important it is to avoid using it. Politeness is a great deterrent most of the time.

Still, I was glad I had it on me. You never know when the swarthy ugly dude is going to turn out to be off his rocker completely, with a particular psychotic trigger about being told that he's not in line correctly.

Scoundrel:

Yes, always observe #3.

-steve

[HDoc]

"An armed society is a polite society!" I don't recall who coined the phrase but it holds true.

Robert A. Heinlein

[Chuck54]

I might have just ended my transaction and let the D.A. go ahead of me.