Being not a small person since I was little and perhaps having the look of someone whose soccer training might be transferrable to headbutting in a pinch, I have not had the need to deal with a moment like this since the horror that was the junior high locker room:
Before I had a chance to take a sip of my coffee, someone — I won’t name them here because it might only serve to make a bad situation worse — came up behind me, said hello, and then asked me about something I’d posted here about them on my weblog. I attempted to explain my reasons for making the post, but before I could finish they responded by saying “so you think you’re pretty fucking smart” and then took a swing at the full cup of coffee in my hand, spilling it across the counter and over my newspaper and breakfast. Without another word they went out the front door and sped off in their car.
I think Peter did everything right in calling the cops and, in a small place like PEI, not directly calling the guy out – except perhaps he failed to inquire in reply as to whether the gent thought he was King Shit, as we used to say in the Maritime school playground of my youth.
But what would you have done? We think of many a pithy retort or ninja move we might make but we never do. I’d be more inclined to spend a lifetime eating away at shoulda-woulda-coulda. Would your jammy bun have been launched in the guys face? Would you have done a dapper Patrick MacNee as John Steed and hooked his ankle with your cane on his way out the door sending him into the display case? If you blog, have you had such a moment?
And would you name the jerk?