Passive/aggressive: A tale of one city
This is Gavin Adair, this is the retail store where you dumped all of your stuff out of your car into our bucket, along with your dog shit. And I’m after you, I’m pretty upset with you. An’ so, um, we’re gonna talk about this buddy. Put your dog shit in my bucket, what’s wrong with you? Think we have public disposal? So we’re gonna be over there talkin’ to you on College Street, apartment B. I got your address you didn’t leave ���� you left your damn address on things. So I’ll be over there talkin’ to you.
That was not Gavin Adair, this is Gavin Adair. I don’t know why the man who left this on my machine message felt compelled to preface his words with “This is Gavin Adair,” because he’s not me, he’s a man whose chosen title includes the moniker “Earth Friendly,” but that’s all I will divulge regarding his identity.
OK, Mr. Guy. I’m sorry my girlfriend wanted to clean out the car. She was sick with allergies and was waiting for me as I watched a play across the street from you place of business. She walked up and down Hawthorne looking for a place to dispose of some accumulated, car-type waste, but it seems no one east of 39th Avenue wants to provide a trash receptacle.
I assure you ���� there was no dog shit in her deposit. You think we just crammed a bunch of crap in your sacred bucket, and then topped it off with dog shit like some kinda cherry on top of a junk-mail sundae?
If this man overreacted, man, let me tell you about all those people who didn’t react. I’m talking about the people I almost killed on West Burnside last Saturday. Damn if I wasn’t thinking about something else and just rolled right into the intersection against a red light.
It was awful.
Most awful, though, was the silence. No one honked, no one yelled. They just looked at me in disbelief, through their windshields they looked at me as if at some kind of monster. The air was still. I regained my composure and cut right, onto a side street, my heart beating ���� a mixture of shame, guilt and fear in my throat.
Please, someone give me hell!!!
Honk your horn, get mad, call me a bastard, you and I both know I deserve it.
