Thursday, July 22, 2010

What a delightful woman

I'm sorry about that title. Did it drip any sarcasm on you? Just the shoes? Yeah, that'll clean up easily.

I may have mentioned a time or twelve that I drive a Segway to work. Where I work is Walter Reed Army Medical Center. When I was coming to work a few days ago there was this woman I had to get past. There's room on the sidewalk so that's no problem. I slowed down and passed her just faster than a walk. She started talking about Segways using words such as "disgusting" and "despicable". She talked low enough that I could have ignored her if I wanted to, but loud enough that she knew I heard.

I considered rolling my eyes and moving on. But, you know what? Fuck that bitch. I stopped, turned around, and started in on her.

"How far did you have to walk this morning? Cause I came four and a half miles. I'll be doing that on the way home, too. Would you rather I drove? Should I clog the streets, the air, and the parking lot for a nine mile commute? You should be glad that you decided to decided to be nasty to me. Do you know where you are? Do you know what this place is? It's a military hospital. These grounds are filled with people who left their limbs in the desert. There's two more of these used by the physical therapy people. Just walk around here during the day and you can expect to see at least one, usually more, amputee driving these around base. Boy, wouldn't that make you feel all superior? Insulting people who have pain walking further than the bathroom. You just watch who you decide to mouth off to."

I passed her again this morning. There were enough people on the sidewalk that I rolled out into the street to tangle with traffic instead. She shot me a blistering look but at least this time she kept her mouth shut.

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