Woman: “Honey?”

Man: “What?”

Woman: “Can I ask you a question?”

Man: “What?”

Woman: “Would you do something for me?”

Man: “What?”

Woman: “Do you see that bowl on the table?”

Man: “Yes.”

Woman: “Can you reach it?”

Man: “Yes.”

Woman: “Would you bring it to me?”

Man: “OK.”

* * *

Man: “Bring that bowl to me from the table.”

Woman: “Is that an order?”

Man: “Will you bring me that bowl on the table?”

Woman: “How about a please?”

Man: “Will you please bring me that bowl?”

Woman: “What bowl?”

Man: “The one on the table.”

Woman: “This one?”

Man: “Yes. Please bring me that bowl.”

Woman: “I can get you a clean one from the cabinet.”

Man: “I just need that bowl. Will you please bring me that bowl?”

Woman: “You don’t want this one, it had milk in it.”

Man: “I need that bowl now. Can you just bring me that bowl?”

Woman: “OK, but let me wash it out first.”

Man: “It’s fine as it is. Just bring it to me!”

Woman: “Don’t raise your voice to me!”

Man: <sigh> “Please bring me that bowl.”

Woman: “OK. See, you could have just asked politely from the beginning.”

Bullgrit

About 10 years ago, Cowgrit and I were out and about after a dinner date. We decided to run over to the nearby Walmart to pick up some items before heading back home.

The Walmart is situated at the end of a strip mall of about a dozen or so other stores down a covered sidewalk. We pulled into the shopping center parking lot, (Cowgrit was driving, I was the passenger), and slowly drove down the lane next to the sidewalk. It was well after sundown, and the stores along the sidewalk strip were closed.

As we moved along, we noticed a woman and daughter (around 8 years old) walking down the well-lighted, but otherwise vacant, sidewalk. A man followed them about 20 feet behind. He was talking to them, and showing agitation with his hand gestures. The woman kept her daughter moving forward while keeping an eye on the man behind them. It became more obvious that there was an uncomfortable dispute between them as we passed by.

I mentioned to Cowgrit how that woman seemed afraid of the man. I asked Cowgrit to pull back around and lets pass them again with our windows down. When we passed them again, we could hear the argument: he was pleading for the woman to come back to him, and saying, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

This was a time before cell phones were so common, so neither of us had one. We needed to get to a phone, but most of the stores were closed and dark. The only open store on the strip, besides Walmart was a game store.

Coincidentally, I was a regular patron of this game store. It was situated pretty close to the center of the strip of stores, so the woman, girl, and man walked right by it. Inside the store, the lights were on, and there were a handful of people hanging out. (There had been a gaming event there that evening, and it had just finished up.)

I told Cowgrit to stop and let me out so I could go into the game store and use their phone. She was to continue driving around, watching, but staying out of harm’s way. She stopped the car long enough for me to get out, and I walked fast up to the game store door.

The woman, girl, and man had just passed the store front, and I could hear the man continuing his call for the other two to return with him. I tried to open the store door, but it was locked. I rapped on the glass to get the attention of someone inside.

One of the workers said, “We’re closed.” I couldn’t hear her, but I could read her lips.

I held my hand up to the side of my head with my thumb and pinky extended, to mimic using a phone. When all the workers and patrons were looking at me, wondering what I was trying to do, I held up my hands, using my fingers to show the numbers 9, 1, 1. My audience was confused at my antics, but the worker girl motioned for the nearest patron to unlock the door.

By this time, the woman and her daughter were walking back towards me, with the man still following and still pleading. (They must have turned around back this way while I was trying to communicate with the game store people.) I could tell the man was probably drunk or stoned, and the woman was very upset. The little girl was following her mother’s direction, and was scared.

The store patron, a skinny little teenager with a box of Magic: the Gathering game cards under his arm, turned the lock to open the door. When the door opened, I said, “Let this woman and girl in, then lock the door.”

The people inside the store seemed to figure out what I had been trying to explain mutely through the window, and they all moved forward as the woman and girl entered. “Thank you, thank you,” the woman said to everyone as she went inside. I stood there a moment longer as they relocked the door, and as the aggressive man stepped up just a moment too slow.

I backed off quickly — the crazy guy might have had a weapon. He gave me a dirty look through bloodshot eyes, but then turned to the glass door. He put his hand on the glass and pleaded once more to the woman. Inside the store, the patrons, a half dozen “gamer nerds” (tall and short, skinny and fat, middle-aged and young) stood at the window with the woman and girl behind and among them. One of the workers was dialing the phone.

I walked off the sidewalk and into the parking lot just as Cowgrit pulled up with the car. I opened the door and hopped in. We waited there for a minute, until the crazy man gave up and walked away down the sidewalk. We then just went on to do our own business.

A week or so later, when I visited the game store again, I asked the guy behind the counter what happened that night after they let the woman and girl in. This worker didn’t know what I was talking about — he hadn’t been working that night, and hadn’t heard anything about the incident.

So I have no idea how the whole thing ended. The last thing I saw was a group of geeks letting a terrified woman and girl find safety in their herd.

Bullgrit

The talk of zero tolerance in Wednesday’s post (below) made me remember an incident when we were flying home from Florida a few weeks ago.

Calfgrit4 (turned 5 yesterday) was sitting next to me on the plane, and I got out his Leapster (hand-held video game) for him to occupy himself. This was while we were still on the tarmac, a couple minutes before we were to take off. (Calfgrit4 called it “blasting off.”)

A flight attendant, walking the aisle, looked over at us and told me we couldn’t use electronic devices during take off. I said, “OK,” and had CG4 turn it off. I commented to my mom, who was sitting on the other side of me, that rule of absolutely no electronics was ridiculous.

Mom said, “It’s so they don’t have to make a judgment call.”

I understand that, and I can appreciate the position having to make a judgment call would put the flight attendants in. But really, my problem with it is:

The airplane electronics should be shielded well enough that nothing in the passenger compartment could possibly interfere with them. What kind of rinky-dink set up do airplanes use that someone checking their voice mail at the back of the plane could potentially turn the craft into a lawn dart? I should be able to check my voice mail while nuking a breakfast burrito in a 2,000-watt microwave and running a World of Warcraft LAN party on half a dozen laptops without the pilots up front noticing any problems with their multi-million-dollar systems.

Bullgrit

Circa 1989, I was 22, my brother was 17. I was living in Wilmington for college, and brogrit drove in from our hometown to visit with me for a day or so over the weekend. We were riding around in his car (he was driving) just talking and being together a bit.

It was around midnight as we drove down Market Street, the main road through downtown. We weren’t in a hurry, we weren’t cutting up. There wasn’t anything open or happening in the downtown area that time of night, and there was almost no traffic (many of the traffic lights were in there late-night blink mode).

Then there was suddenly a car right behind us. It was right up on our bumper, and its lights were shining bright in our car. I, in the passenger seat, turned around to look at the jackass tailgating us. There was a left lane for the person behind us to pass, but he or she just stayed right on our tail. I couldn’t see any reason for him or her to be on us like that. The headlights were blinding, so I couldn’t make out anything about the car or driver behind us.

We came to an intersection with a blinking red light, and my brother stopped the car. But then he had to pull out a bit into the intersection to be able to see around the buildings to determine if the road was clear. He then went on through the intersection.

As soon as we passed the intersection, blue lights flashed from the top of the car tailgating us. Oh crap! It was a cop?

My brother pulled over, and we both started wondering why he was being stopped by a cop. Especially since the jackass had been tailgating us for a few blocks. Yeah, neither of us were too happy with the situation. We hadn’t done anything wrong.

The cop got out of his car and came to brogrit’s window. We went through the expected routine of showing license, explaining why we’re in downtown at midnight, etc. The cop told my brother that he had run a red light. Neither of us really raised a stink about it with the cop, but that just wasn’t fair. Brogrit had stopped at that red light; he just had to afterward roll forward to see around the buildings. This pull and ticket was bullshit.

After the cop left us, we left downtown and went on back to my apartment. “Damn cop working on his quota.” We both determined we would fight this ticket when the court date came up. Brogrit was determined, and I was definitely going to support him on this. It was bullshit.

A couple months later, the day before the court date, Wilmington got a rare snowfall that left a couple inches of white on the ground. On the court date, my brother came to town with our mom and dad for moral support.

We all went to the court and took our seats in the benches to await our call for justice. We watched the judge and district attorney handle several minor cases during our wait; there was nothing interesting or exciting. Then brogrit was called. I went with him to the podium in front of the judge.

We were both ready and raring to defend against the running a red light ticket. Considering the situation, it’s a good feeling to be facing a judge honestly knowing you are right and the charge is wrong. We were anxious to see justice served.

Strangely, the ticketing police officer wasn’t there. Turns out it was not his scheduled day to be in the court – he had written the wrong date on the ticket. When the judge and DA told us the mistake, we sighed and rolled our eyes, expecting to have to come back another day.

“Well,” said the judge, “let’s see what the officer wrote on the report.” He then read the report aloud. The time and location information of the report we already knew from the ticket, (and having, you know, been there), but there was one thing that ticked us off: The officer described the passenger (me) as looking back at the officer behind us as if wondering if he’d pull us for running the red light.

Total bullshit! I didn’t say it, but brogrit and I looked at each other, both obviously thinking it.

After reading the report, the judge asked where brogrit, and our mother and father, whom he noted were with us, lived. When told, the judge said he didn’t want to make them have to drive all the way back to Wilmington for another court date, especially considering they drove up with snow on the roads.

He then told brogrit to be more careful driving. It was a minor chastisement, really, but with both of us knowing the whole ticket was unfair and the report was a mischaracterization of the situation, it stung. As the judge announced he’d just throw the ticket out and let us go home, brogrit was starting to voice objection to the officer’s report. Brogrit wanted his argument, and I understood this desire –- we were right, the cop was wrong. But the judge’s words of dismissing the ticket registered with me, so I put my hand on brogrit’s arm, “Let’s go,” I said.

“But…,” brogrit started to say, but I lead him away from the podium. He was still keyed up for his argument.

Mom and Dad joined us and we left the court directly. The jokes described me having to physically pull brogrit from the courtroom as he tried to tell our side of the story, but that’s a bit of an exaggeration. He was frustrated, as was I, but the ticket was thrown out. We did win. But a win by accidental forfeit, while being unfairly chastised just didn’t sit well with us. We were prepared to fight, and win, so this kind of win left us unsatisfied.

Bullgrit