Everything can be going just fine in one’s day.  And then some guy comes along who gets everyone riled up.  Well, he got me riled up.  I was at one of those small corner parking lots, you know, the ones that should only be for 10 cars, but they’ve crammed in 20 spots because there’s 7 stores in the tiny strip mall and the owner promised each store more parking spaces than he could deliver.

And since it’s on a corner, there’s barely room to get in and out of the lot, let alone your parking space.  Well, at this particular time, there were too many cars trying to maneuver around each other and the guy behind me starts yelling. AT ME!  Calling me the B word and everything else he could think of at the moment.

Let me tell you right now.  That doesn’t sit well with me.

Since this guy was behind me, he wasn’t going anywhere unless I did first.  I put my car in park.  Got out.  Marched back to him and said “You can’t talk to me like that.  And you shouldn’t talk to anyone like that!”

Luckily, he said “OK, OK.  I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”  He was like one of those dogs that bark and bark, but once you approach him, he whimpers and licks your feet.  That, was this guy

If my mother reads this, she’ll call and say, “Oh Cathy!”

Yup, my family still calls me Cathy.  Even though I started going by Kate when I was 19, they refuse to acknowledge it.  If an operator ever asked my Mother if she would accept a collect call from Kate Clarke, I’m sure she would refuse, saying she didn’t know anyone by that name.

“Cathy, you shouldn’t have yelled at that man!  What if he had a gun?”  I mean, this is Los Angeles, she has a point.  “You could have been killed. Murdered.  Raped.  Drugged.  Kidnapped.  Blindfolded and dragged to an unmarked white van.  Sold into prostitution!”

But, I wasn’t.  I made it through alive.  And maybe, just maybe that guy will now think twice before calling people every name in the book whenever he feels like it.  Nah, probably not.