the other side of rage

My parents have the little guy today so that I can finish getting everything done for Christmas.  He is their first grandchild, and he’s only been around for a year, so the blush is still on the rose.  They think it is charming when he runs around screaming, pulls the ornaments off the Christmas tree and licks the appliances.  

So I was at the grocery store by myself at 8:30 this morning.   We’re hosting Christmas Eve with my family and a Christmas Day brunch with Eli’s family and I’ve been so wrapped up in making sure we have presents for everyone that it only occurred to me last night that maybe everyone would like to eat stuff while they’re here, too.

When I pulled into the parking lot I got to thinking about the last time I went to the grocery store alone.  It was on a Sunday about a year ago, shortly after I’d given birth, and I just needed to get out of the house alone for a while.  So I went out to buy some groceries, and Eli stayed home with the baby.

I pulled into the parking lot and the place was mobbed.  Jaywalkers everywhere, people walking right in front of my car, and I remember thinking to myself, man, I better go slow or I’m going to run one of these crazy fuckers down.  I didn’t realize that my caution was causing a slow rage to build in the driver of the car directly behind me.  I made my way across the parking lot, and just as I was driving in front of the grocery store, the fucker behind me started whaling on his horn.  I turned around and there’s this dipshit leaning out the window of his car, SCREAMING at me.  I didn’t get to hear what he was saying because my window was up, but by the way everyone in the parking lot just froze and stared at us, I had a feeling he wasn’t wishing me a pleasant shopping trip.

He tailed me all the way to my parking spot, horn blasting the whole time like a psycho, and it was like something out of a fucking nightmare; I couldn’t believe what was happening.  Now, I should pause here and remind you that I am about the most impatient driver you will find on the road.  The words ROAD RAGE were invented for me, and many a day I’ve almost broken the steering wheel off in my lap over another drivers’ inability to GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY.  I’ve screamed myself hoarse at other drivers on the road and once I got so worked up that I felt something pop in my head and thought I gave myself a stroke.  I am never the slow one causing problems.

But this guy was P I S S E D  O F F.  When I pulled into my parking space, he pulled up right behind me, blocking my car in, and that’s when I got scared.  I immediately thought something bad was about to go down so I grabbed my cell phone and called Eli.  My hands were shaking when I called him because while the phone was ringing I started thinking about the things that could happen. Maybe the guy has a gun and he’s going to shoot me in the head.  Maybe he’ll just assault me physically.  What if he takes a bat to my car?  I told Eli what was happening and he told me to call the police.  Just as I hung up with him to do that, the guy pulled away, parked in a spot directly behind me and got out of his car waving his hands in my direction and shouting.  My heart stopped when I saw him.  He wasn’t that big but he was bigger than me and he looked mean.  Just as I punched in 9-1-1 on my phone, he walked past my car and into the store.  By this point I was freaked out and crying.  I was still in the midst of post-partum hormonal hell and he had scared the shit out of me.  The old me would have gone into the store and confronted him and maybe caused a nice loud scene.  There’s no way he’d try something violent in front of other shoppers.  Or I could wait for him in the wine aisle, break a champagne bottle against the shelf and use the jagged edges as a weapon.  But I didn’t have the kind of rage in me to go that far.  I thought about rage and how powerful it can be and maybe he was in that red hot scary place I’m so familiar with, and he would not care about assaulting me in public.  I didn’t want to get cut.

So I pulled out of my spot and drove home.  And as I drove, my fear began to subside and my anger started to build.  Who the fuck is this prick that he thinks he can intimidate me like that and then just go about his shopping?  What if I had the baby with me and he had to witness that kind of fucked up scene where mama is crying and calling the police because some dickwad is screaming obscenities through the window of our car over nothing other than the fact that he’s an impatient FUCK.  All I wanted to do was buy some fucking bread!

By the time I got home I was out of my mind with rage.  I wanted a knife and a gun and a spray bottle of toxic chemicals, and I wanted to return to that parking lot and wait for that bitch so I could cut, blind and then kill him.  Eli took one look at me, mascara dried in streaks all over my face, shaking with fury and rummaging around under the sink for the oven cleaner and he asked me exactly what happened.  I told him and he asked me what the guy’s car looked like.  After I told him, he went to the closet, put on his coat and told me to stay there.  He’d be right back.

He was gone for a long time and in that time I sat at home and freaked out.  I debated calling the police because what if this guy hurt Eli?  You see this shit on the news all the time, and I couldn’t handle being responsible for that kind of mess.  But then Eli returned home and told me what happened.  He parked his truck next to the guy’s car in the parking lot and waited for him.  When the guy came out with his groceries, Eli got out of his truck and walked over to him.  Now here’s the part I would’ve loved to see.  Eli is a big guy.  He’s 6’1 and has an intimidating presence. People usually don’t fuck with him.

He asked the guy if he remembered a little while ago when he was riding up the ass of an Altima, honking his horn and screaming at the driver.  The guy stuttered a little bit, and Eli continued, “The person in that car was my wife, and you scared the shit out of her.”  Eli was ready for anything to happen.  He thought maybe the guy would be belligerent and try to start some shit.  Instead, he apologized and kissed Eli’s ass, saying he was sorry if I took things the wrong way.  He didn’t mean to upset me.  The guy spoke with a stutter.  Eli told me he said to the guy that he was at home trying to enjoy his day off, and then he had to come down here to straighten things out and he doesn’t like that shit. On his day off.  That’s my favorite part of the story, the part that makes me want to throw my arms around Eli and drag him to bed.  He’s so tough he busted out mobster attitude on some guy in a parking lot on my behalf.

I was so relieved that the story had a happy ending and no one got hurt.  And I like to think that the guy might settle the fuck down next time he gets the impatient urge to act like an animal in public.  I thanked Eli for going down there and defending me like that.  And he just looked at me and rolled his eyes, “Jaeme, he was a scrawny little Italian guy with a speech impediment.  You could’ve taken him.”

Comments

[Jodi]

I am totally in love with Eli. Totafuckingly in love.

[Andrea]

Aww, you gots a good hubby. Yay Eli!

[hubs]

good for eli for being big.
intimidation begets intimidation.
i hope you learned your lesson.

also, merry christmas!