Ironic humbling is the best kind
Loli and I went to Glasgow yesterday to see our friend Jonathan for his birthday gathering. We met him in Central station with his friends: Alistair, Sara and Bally (a nickname borne of the surname "Ballantyne").
We're walking toward Buchanan Street trying to think of somewhere to have eats when I spot this guy wearing big shades with shoulder-length hair. I notice him in particular only because I can see that, while everyone else is constantly adjusting their vector to accommodate the people traffic, he is walking in an obsinately straight line -- a line which would take him directly into Sara if she didn't move. Sara was not in a position to move left or right because she had at least one person on either side walking in the same direction, at near enough the same velocity. She also wasn't looking.
The inevitable impact occurred and the guy blasphemed loudly and angrily. Given that he was wearing the shades, I couldn't be certain where his eyes were pointing at the time, but I could clearly see that he was facing dead ahead in the whole run-up, so I figured he had seen her and just expected her to do all the moving. And you can gather from the detail in which I was able to analyse the situation just how far apart they were when the potential problem arose, so he certainly had plenty of time to clock her.
He angrily told her she'd "better watch where she's going" and she apologised quietly, but I wasn't having any of this; as is my habit when in the presence of loud morons, I became a loud moron myself. Not sure what I shouted, but it was along the lines of: "You better watch yourself, dickhead!"
Witty, I know. ¬_¬
He then turned around and started threatening to knock my head off and such-like. I recall the final insult ending, "ya baldy bastard!". Obviously a dig at the length of my hair, but... he had longer hair than me...
We started walking away long before he finished. Once he was done, as I was halfway through explaining what I'd seen before the event, Sara thanked me.
Y'know, I've never been thanked for shouting at someone like that before. Normally people tell me to shut up (and quite rightly) because my responding can only aggravate the situation. For some reason, though, it was being thanked for it that made me question whether or not it was really worth getting "justice". Maybe next time I'll think before I decide I'm invincible.
We're walking toward Buchanan Street trying to think of somewhere to have eats when I spot this guy wearing big shades with shoulder-length hair. I notice him in particular only because I can see that, while everyone else is constantly adjusting their vector to accommodate the people traffic, he is walking in an obsinately straight line -- a line which would take him directly into Sara if she didn't move. Sara was not in a position to move left or right because she had at least one person on either side walking in the same direction, at near enough the same velocity. She also wasn't looking.
The inevitable impact occurred and the guy blasphemed loudly and angrily. Given that he was wearing the shades, I couldn't be certain where his eyes were pointing at the time, but I could clearly see that he was facing dead ahead in the whole run-up, so I figured he had seen her and just expected her to do all the moving. And you can gather from the detail in which I was able to analyse the situation just how far apart they were when the potential problem arose, so he certainly had plenty of time to clock her.
He angrily told her she'd "better watch where she's going" and she apologised quietly, but I wasn't having any of this; as is my habit when in the presence of loud morons, I became a loud moron myself. Not sure what I shouted, but it was along the lines of: "You better watch yourself, dickhead!"
Witty, I know. ¬_¬
He then turned around and started threatening to knock my head off and such-like. I recall the final insult ending, "ya baldy bastard!". Obviously a dig at the length of my hair, but... he had longer hair than me...
We started walking away long before he finished. Once he was done, as I was halfway through explaining what I'd seen before the event, Sara thanked me.
Y'know, I've never been thanked for shouting at someone like that before. Normally people tell me to shut up (and quite rightly) because my responding can only aggravate the situation. For some reason, though, it was being thanked for it that made me question whether or not it was really worth getting "justice". Maybe next time I'll think before I decide I'm invincible.