Conflict at the Egg Farm
For more than 60 years near my California town, the egg farm has been selling eggs to the public by the flat or crate, via a drive-through car-port attached to the side of a big red barn. The barn wall at the car-port is comprised of glass-fronted refrigerators piled with flats of brown and white eggs in various sizes, each pile labeled with the per-flat price.
When you drive into the car-port, you drive over one of those pressure-sensitive hoses that rings a bell in the office--just like gas stations used to have in the days they were still "service stations"--to alert the farmers they have a customer. They come to your car, you tell them what you want, they bring it to you and you pay them. I say farmers because, though the egg farm has farm workers, it is most often one of the two brothers who own the place who assist you. It feels like a journey into a bucolic past era.
The price of eggs was pretty static for many years, but started to rise sometime last year. Earlier this year, a flat of 30 extra-large brown eggs was $5. But recently they had to raise prices to $5.25. I asked one of the brothers why they raised prices; he told me that a truck-load of feed used to cost $6000. But over his last three shipments (about 1 month), the price had skyrocketed first to $9000, then to $10,000, then to $10,500, because the heat and drought in the mid-west had wiped out a lot of the feed corn. He said he was trying to insulate his direct customers from the cost increase and eat the losses, hoping that it will be temporary, but at the moment his prices for roadside sales were almost the same as his wholesale prices.
I asked if there were any local feed suppliers, he said that there are not, because the cost to grow things here is too high for something with so low a margin.
My next shopping stop was a road-side fruit stand run by a farmer who grows a variety of crops (including sweet corn for human consumption). I mentioned the egg-price and feed corn issue to him, suggested that he might want to analyze whether that kind of crop might become profitable for him in the future if the mid-west situation represents climate change rather than a "one-of" year. I told him I was motivated out of a desire to keep egg prices down, especially if it meant both he and the egg farm profited, and he laughed.
So, over a couple of weeks I ate through the flat of eggs. Went back for more.
Though the egg farm is a drive-through, it is okay to leave your car if it's not crowded and if you don't wander to the chicken-barns (they don't want people harassing or tampering with the birds, and though their cage-sizes exceed legal requirements, have had problems with PETA activists in the past).
I had my purse in the trunk, so I got out of the car to pay the farmer. I told him I'd mentioned the feed issue to the other farmer, though I don't know how astronomical feed prices would have to be for a local feed project to be profitable. We talked a little about the prospect of climate change, wondering how our area could adapt to it and how local farming businesses might change.
As we talked beside my trunk, an obese, somewhat Alfred-Hitchcock-shaped, plethoric middle-aged white man drove up in a white pick-up truck--the kind that has a built-in tool-box in the truck-bed right behind the cab. He parked behind my car and helped himself to a flat of eggs (which element of self-service is also "okay" here so long as you pay.)
As I was stepping back into my car, he was paying the farmer, and said loudly "Don't listen to her, that's all bullshit."
This is where I made a mistake. I thought the man was just expressing his views. But, as it turns out, he was trolling.
With one foot in my car, I innocently said, "It's not bullshit." Now, this can be said in a confrontational way; in this case my tone was somewhat resigned and conciliatory and I only used the word "bullshit" to echo his own manner of speaking.
The man seemed to instantly "puff up" and stomped angrily around the back of my car toward me.
I judged that I couldn't get into the car and lock the door fast enough to be safe if he attacked physically, so instead I took my foot out of the car and stepped slightly away from the car, moving toward him by two footsteps so I'd be clear of the open door, by no small coincidence stopping in hanmi. My thought was, if he tried to jump me, I'd be able to move freely from that position, and it seemed likely the egg-farmer would phone for police if that happened. My aikido skills are pretty poor, but I figured they would be good enough to dodge this man's attack long enough if I had to; he did not appear too nimble.
I reminded myself to remain very calm and non-escalatory. I also tried to focus on feeling my feet, and paying attention to what the guy was doing without assuming anything ahead of time.
But my lack of either fear or aggression apparently went "off-script" from what the man expected as a reaction. As he aggressively rounded the corner of my car, I was calmly moving towards him rather than attempting to flee. His expression became entirely confused for a moment, and his body-language deflated and became uncertain.
"Why are you so angry?" I asked calmly, allowing my genuine bafflement to come through in my voice.
"I hate people like you!" he spat.
I ran an internal checklist. "people like me"...well, we're both white, so that's not it...we're both middle-aged, so that's not it...we're both kind of fat, so that's not it...maybe because I'm an opinionated female? But if I ask him if he "hates women" that's surely provocation and I'll get clobbered...
"You hate....scientists?" I asked. Surely he could not have drawn much other conclusion about me from the fragment of conversation that he heard?
His expression then became one of resigned exasperation. Whatever script he had in his head for how he expected things to go, I clearly was too dense to catch on and give him the fight or argument he had envisioned.
"Just get out of my way!" he spat with renewed anger--though he could easily have driven around my car, it was indeed in front of his.
"Okay," I said as he stomped to his truck. I returned to the open door of my car, watching him to be sure he was indeed getting into his truck and not, for example, digging a gun out of it. I said to the egg-farmer over the top of my car, "Anyway, if the feed-price stays up, maybe that will turn into someone local's business opportunity and drive them down again."
Once the Angry Man was getting into his vehicle I hastily got into my car and started it. The man tail-gaited me as we drove off of the farm property, but fortunately he turned the opposite way than I did when we reached the street. If he had continued tail-gaiting me I would probably have cell-phoned the cops.
When I got home and took the eggs out of the trunk, I realized I still had an "Obama/Biden '08" sticker on my car--which is probably what Angry Man's "people like you" was referring to.
Then I beat myself up a bit mentally for having responded to the Angry Man's comment, giving him an excuse to set-off. Though in all, since the result was everyone got their eggs, the farmer got paid, and nobody got hurt, I "did the right thing" (or one of many possible "right thing"s) even if I made an initial mis-step. So I guess it turned out to be consistent with ai nuke But if I hadn't spoken/unwittingly provoked, and instead had left, if the farmer had casually said something in support of climate-change, being within the man's reach, the farmer might have been sucker-punched with no one around to assist him. I also worried a little that the Angry Man was so angry and irritable that he might accidentally or intentionally wrap his truck around a phone-pole, or go on to commit some other violence later that day.
So anyway, yesterday I went back for another flat of eggs, wondering if maybe the farmer was mad at me for setting off the Angry Man, if perhaps Angry Man was an old friend or another long-standing customer of his with whom he shared views. Turns out, the guy was an infrequent repeat-customer, and the whole interaction with him that day had scared the egg farmer. The egg farmer apologized to me and said he was glad to see that I'd come back; he was afraid he'd lost a customer. I told him it wasn't his fault what another customer did--how could it be? He also said that at the time he'd been hoping that I wouldn't leave before the Angry Man did, because he didn't want to be left alone with the guy.
So anyway, the egg farmer is trying to decide what to do if the Angry Man comes back. Should he tell Angry Man that he doesn't want his business? Should he continue to do business but warn the Angry Man not to drive off his other customers? Should he ask the Angry Man if everything is okay, since that one day he was so upset?
I really don't know what the safest thing is for the farmer to do. I just hope the Angry Man looks back on his outburst and becomes too embarrassed about it to ever return to the egg farm.
But I won't hold my breath on that. We discussed several possible ways to deal with the guy, but at the end I told the farmer I thought he shouldn't hesitate to call the cops if he feels the least bit threatened the next time he sees that man.
When you drive into the car-port, you drive over one of those pressure-sensitive hoses that rings a bell in the office--just like gas stations used to have in the days they were still "service stations"--to alert the farmers they have a customer. They come to your car, you tell them what you want, they bring it to you and you pay them. I say farmers because, though the egg farm has farm workers, it is most often one of the two brothers who own the place who assist you. It feels like a journey into a bucolic past era.
The price of eggs was pretty static for many years, but started to rise sometime last year. Earlier this year, a flat of 30 extra-large brown eggs was $5. But recently they had to raise prices to $5.25. I asked one of the brothers why they raised prices; he told me that a truck-load of feed used to cost $6000. But over his last three shipments (about 1 month), the price had skyrocketed first to $9000, then to $10,000, then to $10,500, because the heat and drought in the mid-west had wiped out a lot of the feed corn. He said he was trying to insulate his direct customers from the cost increase and eat the losses, hoping that it will be temporary, but at the moment his prices for roadside sales were almost the same as his wholesale prices.
I asked if there were any local feed suppliers, he said that there are not, because the cost to grow things here is too high for something with so low a margin.
My next shopping stop was a road-side fruit stand run by a farmer who grows a variety of crops (including sweet corn for human consumption). I mentioned the egg-price and feed corn issue to him, suggested that he might want to analyze whether that kind of crop might become profitable for him in the future if the mid-west situation represents climate change rather than a "one-of" year. I told him I was motivated out of a desire to keep egg prices down, especially if it meant both he and the egg farm profited, and he laughed.
So, over a couple of weeks I ate through the flat of eggs. Went back for more.
Though the egg farm is a drive-through, it is okay to leave your car if it's not crowded and if you don't wander to the chicken-barns (they don't want people harassing or tampering with the birds, and though their cage-sizes exceed legal requirements, have had problems with PETA activists in the past).
I had my purse in the trunk, so I got out of the car to pay the farmer. I told him I'd mentioned the feed issue to the other farmer, though I don't know how astronomical feed prices would have to be for a local feed project to be profitable. We talked a little about the prospect of climate change, wondering how our area could adapt to it and how local farming businesses might change.
As we talked beside my trunk, an obese, somewhat Alfred-Hitchcock-shaped, plethoric middle-aged white man drove up in a white pick-up truck--the kind that has a built-in tool-box in the truck-bed right behind the cab. He parked behind my car and helped himself to a flat of eggs (which element of self-service is also "okay" here so long as you pay.)
As I was stepping back into my car, he was paying the farmer, and said loudly "Don't listen to her, that's all bullshit."
This is where I made a mistake. I thought the man was just expressing his views. But, as it turns out, he was trolling.
With one foot in my car, I innocently said, "It's not bullshit." Now, this can be said in a confrontational way; in this case my tone was somewhat resigned and conciliatory and I only used the word "bullshit" to echo his own manner of speaking.
The man seemed to instantly "puff up" and stomped angrily around the back of my car toward me.
I judged that I couldn't get into the car and lock the door fast enough to be safe if he attacked physically, so instead I took my foot out of the car and stepped slightly away from the car, moving toward him by two footsteps so I'd be clear of the open door, by no small coincidence stopping in hanmi. My thought was, if he tried to jump me, I'd be able to move freely from that position, and it seemed likely the egg-farmer would phone for police if that happened. My aikido skills are pretty poor, but I figured they would be good enough to dodge this man's attack long enough if I had to; he did not appear too nimble.
I reminded myself to remain very calm and non-escalatory. I also tried to focus on feeling my feet, and paying attention to what the guy was doing without assuming anything ahead of time.
But my lack of either fear or aggression apparently went "off-script" from what the man expected as a reaction. As he aggressively rounded the corner of my car, I was calmly moving towards him rather than attempting to flee. His expression became entirely confused for a moment, and his body-language deflated and became uncertain.
"Why are you so angry?" I asked calmly, allowing my genuine bafflement to come through in my voice.
"I hate people like you!" he spat.
I ran an internal checklist. "people like me"...well, we're both white, so that's not it...we're both middle-aged, so that's not it...we're both kind of fat, so that's not it...maybe because I'm an opinionated female? But if I ask him if he "hates women" that's surely provocation and I'll get clobbered...
"You hate....scientists?" I asked. Surely he could not have drawn much other conclusion about me from the fragment of conversation that he heard?
His expression then became one of resigned exasperation. Whatever script he had in his head for how he expected things to go, I clearly was too dense to catch on and give him the fight or argument he had envisioned.
"Just get out of my way!" he spat with renewed anger--though he could easily have driven around my car, it was indeed in front of his.
"Okay," I said as he stomped to his truck. I returned to the open door of my car, watching him to be sure he was indeed getting into his truck and not, for example, digging a gun out of it. I said to the egg-farmer over the top of my car, "Anyway, if the feed-price stays up, maybe that will turn into someone local's business opportunity and drive them down again."
Once the Angry Man was getting into his vehicle I hastily got into my car and started it. The man tail-gaited me as we drove off of the farm property, but fortunately he turned the opposite way than I did when we reached the street. If he had continued tail-gaiting me I would probably have cell-phoned the cops.
When I got home and took the eggs out of the trunk, I realized I still had an "Obama/Biden '08" sticker on my car--which is probably what Angry Man's "people like you" was referring to.
Then I beat myself up a bit mentally for having responded to the Angry Man's comment, giving him an excuse to set-off. Though in all, since the result was everyone got their eggs, the farmer got paid, and nobody got hurt, I "did the right thing" (or one of many possible "right thing"s) even if I made an initial mis-step. So I guess it turned out to be consistent with ai nuke But if I hadn't spoken/unwittingly provoked, and instead had left, if the farmer had casually said something in support of climate-change, being within the man's reach, the farmer might have been sucker-punched with no one around to assist him. I also worried a little that the Angry Man was so angry and irritable that he might accidentally or intentionally wrap his truck around a phone-pole, or go on to commit some other violence later that day.
So anyway, yesterday I went back for another flat of eggs, wondering if maybe the farmer was mad at me for setting off the Angry Man, if perhaps Angry Man was an old friend or another long-standing customer of his with whom he shared views. Turns out, the guy was an infrequent repeat-customer, and the whole interaction with him that day had scared the egg farmer. The egg farmer apologized to me and said he was glad to see that I'd come back; he was afraid he'd lost a customer. I told him it wasn't his fault what another customer did--how could it be? He also said that at the time he'd been hoping that I wouldn't leave before the Angry Man did, because he didn't want to be left alone with the guy.
So anyway, the egg farmer is trying to decide what to do if the Angry Man comes back. Should he tell Angry Man that he doesn't want his business? Should he continue to do business but warn the Angry Man not to drive off his other customers? Should he ask the Angry Man if everything is okay, since that one day he was so upset?
I really don't know what the safest thing is for the farmer to do. I just hope the Angry Man looks back on his outburst and becomes too embarrassed about it to ever return to the egg farm.
But I won't hold my breath on that. We discussed several possible ways to deal with the guy, but at the end I told the farmer I thought he shouldn't hesitate to call the cops if he feels the least bit threatened the next time he sees that man.