TKOG Who asks you to stop (before she kicks your friggin’ face in)

NTKOG #170: The kind of take-no-prisoners badass warrior chick who, when you affront her, holds you up to a wall by your throat until you grunt out an apology.

I am: mild-mannered, unless you snootily miscorrect my pronunciation of the name of one of my favorite authors. (It’s EVE-uh-lyn WAAAHH, snotty bookstore dudes!)

I am not: unscarred by rude behavior, even if I choose to ignore it.

The Scene: Taking a mental-health stroll during my lunch break from the office. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I work in a slightly seedy area of TechnicallyBoston that police dispatchers routinely refer to as Roxbury. If you’re from Boston, you know what I’m talking about; if not, then, well, don’t leave your GPS in the car when you come to visit my office.

Actually, just don’t visit my office.

Because my not-super-great work neighborhood is situated near a major university, however, there is an intriguing social dynamic. The fresh-faced do-gooder undergrads routinely strew gifts and spare cigarettes upon the thronging street masses, which has led our local homeless population to become — like public-park squirrels — entitled and snappish.

While I’m often a good sport with a spare quarter or PowerBar, I’m a firm believer in well-reasoned donations to local charities instead of high-pressure one-on-one hand-outs. Even though I’m a little disgusted with my own behavior, often when I’m approached in the street, I’ll avoid eye contact with the beggar and move on my own way.

“Go fuck yourself!” they will snarl on occasion. “An excellent suggestion!” I’ll crow merrily, then continue about my business.

Every once in a while, though, a girl has had a morning filled with screaming visitors, lost file folders, the incessantly shrilling phone — and  on such a morning, a girl is maybe a little sick of being looked upon as an enchanted piggy bank for the unfortunately downtrodden.

As I lingered outside the local 7-11, listening to the last few notes of a song on my iPod, a middle-aged woman holding a plastic bag tapped me on my shoulder. I jerked away, of course; I hate being touched.

Bitter-Faced Street Woman: Give me a dollar.
TKOG: No. I don’t even have a dollar. I only carry cards.
BFSW:  I know you have a dollar. You have a wallet. A nice lady bought me some food. Now I need money for the bus.
TKOG: My wallet’s empty. There’s nothing in it.
BFSW: Your heart’s empty. You have nothing in your heart. There’s nothing inside of you.

And maybe it was her particularly mawkish turn of phrase, or the fact that she had already been given food by another sucker on the street, but my heart slammed shut like a steel fire door. Look, I told her, I’m not giving you anything. I don’t owe you anything. Leave me alone.

BFSW: You’re a selfish cunt. You stupid ugly cunt!

…really? Really?! After she shouted it, she turned and got onto the bus that had pulled up — though how she intended to pay for it, I have no clue. Looking through the bus window, her face had already grown serene again. Probably she was so used to calling people stupid fucking cunts that the interaction hadn’t registered with her. She was going to get on the bus and do it ten, fifteen, a thousand more times before the day was done, slashing as many innocent pedestrians, for virtually no reason. Words are cheap to spend but expensive to hear, and she was getting ready to drive up debts all over town.

So. I followed her. Ignoring my empty stomach, the office waiting for me, and the fact that it was an incredibly stupid idea, I swung myself into the front of the bus, where she was haggling with the driver.

“I’m not a stupid fucking cunt! I’m not any kind of a cunt and you can’t just say shit to people because they don’t give you money!” She turned to face me; the driver and occupants of the first few rows looked nervous. “I’m a nice girl. I have a job, I work really hard, and I’m broke. I’m sorry I don’t have money to give you and I’m sorry you don’t have money, but it’s not my fault. You need to apologize for what you said.”

Okay, check that punctuation. I might have actually been shouting. I was on the verge of leaning into the woman and shouting until she apologized, but she was giving me an impassive bovine stare, and the bus driver leaned in.

“Are you going somewhere?” Uh, no. “Then you need to get off my bus.”

Point taken. Meanwhile, in all the ruckus, the woman had crept to the back of the bus, paying neither the fare nor the demanded apology.

The Verdict: Why does it hurt so much when people who have no right to say horrible things do anyway? Obviously I’m never doing this again but, jesus, it felt good to call someone out for being a completely unacceptable human being, just once.

Tagged as: boston, charity, i used to be a socialist and now i am markedly less sympathetic to the plight of the downtrodden but dude sometimes they are ASSHOLES, in which i appear to be a crazy person, philanthropy, things i should probably not tell the internet, usually stuff like this doesn't bother me. i blame PMS., you've wanted to do it before too