Sunday, July 8, 2007

Rude Encounter
I was running late for an appointment with my classmates today to work on an assignment. I was supposed to be there at 1, but at 1, I ran out of gas and had to stop by a station.

I quickly got out of my car with my credit card. A woman approached me from her own car asking for money. I’ve experienced this before. Some woman approaches me, tells me she’s on some trip, and ran out of money for gas. I noticed she was in a car with another fellow. She was neither pregnant, homeless-looking, or a minority. Well, I was tired of responding to these kinds of encounters, and decided I wouldn’t be generous. I ignored her, and was fiddling with the credit card machine that was rejecting my gift card. She stood next to my car and stared at me the whole time. “ Is she mad or something?” I thought. I went into my car to grab some cash, all the while rolling up my windows and locking it as I left, afraid she may do something.

By this time, she was angry at me, yelling at me and telling me I was rude. She followed me into the gas store, as I paid the manager and ignored her. She decided to demonstrate to me how to greet a person while I paid for my gas. She followed me out, verbally harassing and screaming at me calling me, calling me a “rude bitch.”

To my surprise, all the while I was extremely calm, going about my business nonchalantly. I suppose this angered her even more, but I wasn’t interested in her, nor felt any need to justify myself. Looking back, she was so pissed, lol.

I’m not as angered by the situation as I am in disbelief. I can’t believe this sense of entitlement from someone who would ask for donations. If I was rude, I would’ve told her to go away or say mean things, from my point of view, I was saving her face by not saying anything. She must’ve felt vulnerable asking someone for money, and I think it made her feel better about herself by taking it out on somebody, specifically a little girl at a gas station by herself—me. The sense of entitlement she had made me sick. She made homeless people look bad. I am entitled to ignore her; she is not entitled to demand anything of me.

I can't believe people sometimes.

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