Showdown with a slithery slime-ball

Bully boy gets a bouncer... :

Gaston de ROSAYRO

I live on a pretty busy street in a pretty busy area in Colombo. And living on my pretty busy street in my pretty busy area gives me an opportunity to observe a large cross-section of humanity. Busy people. Cool people. Old people. Young people. Interesting people. Inspiring people. Weird people. Friendly people. A wide range of types and of course, the occasional slimeball. I know that’s not a term often used in self-help literature but perhaps it should be. Because they do exist. Yes, the psychologists might give them different labels (narcissists, delusionals, sociopaths) but at their core they are slimeballs. Meaning they are odious and contemptible people.

They live among us in human form and permeate every corner of society. They are bird droppings on the windscreen of life. They exist in our homes, our businesses, our schools, our sporting clubs and even our places of worship. Periodically you will be required to deal with their slime-ball-ness. Last week I met the poster boy for slimeballs. An angry slimeball. An ignorant, arrogant bully. Oh yes, he was a champion.

It was about 10 am and I was waiting in line at my local supermarket. I was enjoying my own little private meditation session, humming a song in my head and using as few brain cells as possible when from out of nowhere my tranquillity was shattered by an inappropriately loud voice. There I was, lost in my own little cerebral refuge, groceries in hand when Mr. Mutton Head stepped out of the shadows of obscurity and into my life.

Apparently there were not enough cashiers on duty for his liking and his exceptionally important life and very busy schedule was being ruined by having to wait in a queue. There were two cashiers working and about five or six people in each queue, so it was really no big deal. When I am in a hurry and the cash registers are unmanned there have been times when I dump my purchases, inform the supervisor on duty quietly and leave.

I usually do not judge people by their looks, but this guy’s ugliness was imprinted all over him. Everything about him, his frog-like voice, his shifty eyes and piggish, cruel face cried out that he was the very personification of evil.

He was in his forties and wearing expensive clothes. So he must have been someone important. How dare he have to lower himself and line up with us commoners to wait a full two minutes to buy his cigarettes. Such an inconvenience for the poor little rich slob! He started his tirade by complaining about the situation to some ladies standing next to him in the queue who clearly were not interested in his protest, his language or his manner. When he did not get the support he was looking for, he turned his increasingly loud attention to the young girl at the register. When she did not seem to have an immediate solution he began to get louder, more aggressive and more intimidating. He even dropped the F-bomb with almost every whining sentence.

I looked at the young cashier, she appeared to be petrified. Part of me wanted to lean over the counter and stab the slimeball in the neck with one of the Bic pens on the stand next to him. But that would have been bad right? Just checking. Fortunately for him, I am not the violent type. Not often that is. By this stage he was visibly angry and beginning to rant and rave. I looked around at everyone in line and he and I were the only males there.

I looked at the other people lined up patiently with their purchases. They all looked extremely uncomfortable. I stared at the ranting idiot in disbelief, marvelling at his ability to create such chaos and tension all because of his selfishness, his arrogance and his inability to control his temper. He turned and saw me staring at him. I was glad. He looked at me for a second and then turned away. I was disappointed. I kept staring. He turned back to me. Bingo! “What are you (F-bomb blast again) looking at?” he barked at me.

Now I will not say exactly what I said because my grandkids and nuns in my parish might read this. But I will say that I retaliated with an inventive outburst of choice invective that had him visibly muttering and stuttering. I walked over and we shared a brief exchange over the top of a magazine and chewing gum stand. In my own special (loving, caring, sharing) way I told him that he should probably treat people more respectfully, control his temper, regulate his volume somewhat and not intimidate harmless teenage girls.

After our chat, he slammed his cigarettes on the counter, abandoned his place in the queue and stormed out of the supermarket, taking all his bad energy and extreme unpleasantness with him. Bliss! Before I left I asked the young cashier if she was okay. She was still shaky and a little teary but told me she would be all right. She thanked me profusely. I hated it that a ‘grown’ man had intimidated and bullied a young girl to tears and made twenty other people feel uncomfortable and anxious all because he was a self-centred, socially-unaware fool.

Now, I know the behavioural psychologists would have addressed this issue in a much more eloquent and academic way than I did. But I must confess that my tolerance for people who intimidate and bully is zero. I can’t help myself. That is not entirely true. I do not want to help myself. Most bullies are gutless and need to be told.

Every time I have confronted a bully in a situation similar to this one, they have backed down. Every time. They operate on intimidation and when they realise they cannot intimidate someone, they will change their tune and move on. That is pretty much how it went.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I hinted that if he did not pipe down that some gallant male might just not be averse to smacking him in the kisser in the car park. I endorsed the statement by smashing my right fist into my left palm. And by the way, I also did mention some pretty charming things about his ancestry and how he could go and propagate his obnoxious slimeball species in the most incestuous way imaginable.

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