When I worked security at a facility for the elderly, I soon figured out that young jerks become old jerks with the passage of time. Once
I was called to restrain a dementia patient not many years older than I. He had worked as a manual laborer. The man was tearing me a new ass. I stepped back and asked if he would enjoy a Coke. He replied that he would love one. He got it too. Saved by good manners.
I've never been able to quit playing that game. :P I can honestly say I've never felt threatened by an opponent, though I have run into one or two who were loudmouth jerks over the years. I'm sure you know the type - yelling at you about how your deck is awful and you're stupid for playing card X or card Y while you're beating them. That said, the reason I'm almost always armed at tournaments has roughly zero to do with the other players. Obviously it's not impossible to have a problem in that way, but I'm far more concerned with the idea of some random asshole deciding to rob the tournament venue or just assaulting me in the parking lot, etc.Originally Posted by Yung
Well, today I qualified (maybe not actually for a few hours), and maybe that is why I seem to have been less tolerant of bitchy people. And I mean people being bitchy when there is no good reason to be bitchy. Like if you don't like something about THIS grocery store, go to a different grocery store, the damn things are all over the place. At the same time, I tend to be more outgoing and nice to people, at least initially, until they do something to earn my ire. For example:
This old lady (what comes after sexagenarian? what comes after that?) asks me if I happen to know where a certain grocery item is. By coincidence, it was right next to whatever item I had just grabbed, so I knew and smiled and showed her and even joked that I knew because it happened to be right next to the last item I selected. All good to this point, but then she decided I would be a bitching partner for her pissy demeanor and starts complaining that "you can't find anything because they keep moving things" and I pleasantly reply that "oh, my memory is so lame I don't remember where things used to be". Her husband, who I presume is tired of her bullshit, lights up with a huge smile and instantly becomes my best buddy, smiling and joking with me for the rest of our mutual shopping trip. Some good with the bad
<shudder>
I find ARCs a bit worse because they tend to be more heavily populated by detail-fixated pedantic people on the autism spectrum.
Chris
We had that just a bit ago. Guy got incensed over a rule call and stomped off. Even started posting weird crap about the SO's sexuality on line. Geez.
I liked Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison because I was a teenager when they came out. By the time I watched Waterboy several years after it came out, it felt like just another Adam Sandler movie where he does a goofy voice and plays a retarded person.
My experience was similar, but different. It started when the car drove by my friend and I in a parking lot and the driver yelled something derogatory to us. Me, being a 15-year old smartass, flipped the guy the bird. The driver promptly threw the car in reverse, backed up and jumped out and began yelling at me. I stood, stonefaced, while he got it out, and then told him to shove it up his ass (remember I was 15 and invincible). The guy turned red with rage and went back to his car and got a tire iron, presumably to "beat some respect" into me. Only as he turned around to begin his assault with a deadly weapon, he found me standing calmly with a knife in my hand. A Large-size Smith & Wesson SWAT folder with a 4" blade, locked open, edge up, point out towards him, in a low grip. He stood there for a brief moment as it reset his brain suddenly realizing that violence was going to go both ways. And he muttered something like, "Fuck you." and jumped in his car and drove off.
I remember thinking at the time how I was going to have to stab this dude in a parking lot in front of a Gamestop, because of words. That was stupid and I've by and large kept my asshole in check, in public, since that day about 20-years ago. Sometimes it comes out, I admit.
The other thing I learned is that, yes, it pays to be polite. But you get farther with a kind word and a good hunk of steel (be it in knife or gun form) than a kind word alone.
That...is a very good point, actually.
You can tell the size of someone by the size of things that truly bother them.
Unfortunately, the modern tit-for-tat internet exchange spectrum has decreed that if one responds to something stupid with anything resembling a snarky, irritated, or otherwise not-totally-drspock-calm comment, it is, of course, because you're totally OMG butthurt assblasted rustled-jimmies clonked-bonkers over it.
But I don't think that's true.
Being curious or mildly annoyed about some Ms. Grundy that can't mind her own fucking business isn't the same 'bothered' as the sort of useless people that flip the fuck out and yell at a 17yr old fast food worker over the presence/absence of some condiment on a $2 sandwich - or a GameStop employee's use of the wrong gender-indicative pronoun.
That's why I'm unfailingly polite and as cheery and patient as can be when I'm dealing with anyone doing a crappy job on my behalf. Regardless of whether that's a drive-thru window, or a SecFor gate guard, or the custodians that take the trash out of my office. Keeping random assholes out of my bubble is one thing. Being an asshole to someone that has business in my bubble is another thing entirely, and yet so many people can't differentiate the two.
Yeah!
You really showed that old lady who's boss!
Yeah!
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
I don't disagree with this. However, there's a bit of a pattern with some people. They're quick to react to an old lady or some old boomer with a get off my lawn complex, yet they never seem to report any dust ups with someone their own age or size who just might push their shit in if they're feeling froggy. That's where things like this get weird for me. It's easy to pop off at someone who you perceive as low risk. It's quite another to mouth off back to someone who may rearrange your dental work.
