I seem to always be the bad guy. Apparently I'm not supposed to say what I think and I'm supposed to just smile no matter what kind of abuse I receive. Keeping sweet is not part of my religion.
Several years ago, I went to Costco and bought some stuff. Some was regular stuff that I had to go through the regular cashiers to pay for and I also had one carton of cigarettes. Now, at the time, you had to pay for cigarettes before you ever left the cigarette cage and the cashier would tape the receipt right to the carton. So I buy my carton there and then head to the regular lines in order to check out. As I'm standing there, having put my stuff on the conveyor belt, the woman behind me decides that I'm obviously too stupid to live or else I'm trying to pull a fast one and she says, "Excuse me, I think you forgot to put this other item up there." I, being me, said, "No, I didn't." Then the woman behind her commiserates with her saying, "Some people...." So I was the bad guy despite being the victim of someone being unable to mind her own business.
The next time I got to be a bad guy was when Knit Happens was closing and I had a pile of some seriously luscious yarn next to me while I thought about what I wanted to do with it. A little girl, who had been behaving beautifully in a store with way too many people in it, came up and started to grab my yarn. I said, "Please don't" and her mother took exception to that, informing me that she could touch it if she wanted to. I told her that no, she couldn't, because it was mine. She made some other comment and I told her that that was why I had said please, because I really do try to be very polite and considerate of less-than-fully-grown humans. Mom looks at me and says that I'm not a very nice person.
Are we seeing a pattern here? And, yes, I was starting to think that it really was me and not them. But what am I supposed to do with the Costco woman? Say, wow, you're right, I did forget that, thanks for pointing that out to me and then still not put the cigarettes on conveyor belt? No win situation here for me. And it turned out that they were intimately acquainted with the woman and her antics at Knit Happens. Of course, the thing that really peeves me is that I then try to "prove" that I'm not the bad guy and I really am a nice person.
Always a mistake.
Today, I was at Chicken Out with my friend, CV. We had had our dinner and were chitchatting, again minding our own business when a woman walked in with her young son, who I was later informed was four years old. He was climbing up on the counter, he was running around, and he ran by CV and me a couple times before coming over and grabbing my hand. BTW, I did admit to his mother that he only grabbed my hand, but it could as easily have been another other body part. He grabs, I jumped and semi-yelled, "Excuse me?" and he let go right fast. Personally, I think this is a good thing because it might teach him not to grab strange women, especially since I know I'm not the strangest woman out there.
That got Mom's attention and I told her that he'd grabbed my hand and the first words out of her mouth were, "He's only four." So what? It's okay if he grabs me as long as he's only four? What happens when he's eight? Or twelve? Or older? My response was vintage Carol when I said, "I don't care." Once the exchange was done, I looked at CV and told her that I was going to be the bad guy. She tsked at me and told me that I was wrong.
Nope. Mom came back holding said small child and informed me that he was a very friendly little boy and just wanted to say hi, and that I had scared him. I said, "Good" and she informed me that I wasn't a very nice person. CV's jaw had dropped because she really didn't believe that the woman wasn't making her son apologize. CV looked at me and just said that she couldn't believe I was right and we continued our conversation.
Then, out of the blue, we hear someone say, "I don't think she was out of line at all." The woman who had witnessed the entire incident was telling the mother that I wasn't the bad guy. Vindication in the form of a completely uninvolved spectator!
Let me tell you, I know four-year-olds who wouldn't dream of doing that, one of whom I'm actually willing to babysit. And I do adore my GGMM, MsJLK.
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