Violence And Its Role
Mrs. du Toit speaks about violence and more importantly its role in society as a deterrent to rude behavior.
Mark my words, one of these days I will either be killed, go to jail, or have hurt someone severely due to my actions. I am a fairly confrontational guy. If I see someone being an ass, I will confront them. I don’t feel bad about it. I have no intention of engaging in fighting when I do this, just the sense of satisfaction of righting a wrong or just drawing attention. I’ve actually even drawn applause from passersby a couple of times.
Now, I do not encourage my behavior because you never know who is armed, who is insane, or who just got out of jail and has a body in their trunk. My behavior is because I am not scared to take an ass-whipping. Heck, I’ll recover. Or so I used to think. Something about turning 31 has changed my feelings about that. I’ve had my ass kicked a lot. I have also kicked quite a few asses. When I was young, I got in to many fights. I’m not a particularly big guy (6 feet 1 inch, 175 pounds) and I don’t claim to be a bad ass. But I can take a punch.
I’ve calmed down some since marriage. I don’t tell people they can’t park there or flip as many people off in traffic anymore. And I haven’t been into a fistfight since 1996. Being a confrontational guy, I’ve noticed most people back down when confronted. It’s most folks’ nature to just avoid anything that could turn ugly. That’s about the only thing I have going for me.
One story I will share in an effort to make Mrs. du Toit proud is this: I was on the exit from the West Knoxville Wal-Mart getting on the interstate by the red light. Apparently, no one in the city of Knoxville can remember exactly which lane ends (heck, I can’t remember now). I witnessed through my rearview mirror some guy in one lane who apparently needed to be in the other. He whipped over a lane in his big truck with big stupid tires (no signal, of course) and almost ran some poor lady off the road. She honked the honk of fear to let him know that she was there since he obviously hadn’t seen her. Here I am, first car at the red light. Big Stupid Truck behind me and poor lady behind him. He gets out of the car and goes up to her window and is yelling expletives at her while pointing all because she honked her horn. Mind you, he cut her off and the whole honking thing could have been avoided if he had paid attention or waited to merge.
SayUncle to the rescue. I step from my car and say If you weren’t such an asshole, she wouldn’t have honked at you. The first part of my plan succeeded, he was now no longer yelling at her but yelling at me to mind my own business. It told him he needed to shut up and get back in his car (I hope, dear reader, you realize that I am leaving out the particular expletives I was using). He never made an effort to approach me. And (remember I’m no bad ass) I should mention this guy was about 6 inches shorter than me and weighed considerably less. I could have kicked his ass. So, I started walking towards him. He then got in his big stupid truck and I, satisfied, got into my car. A second or two later, the light changed and I sped off while he tried to follow. He was much more brave behind the wheel of his big stupid truck. I hoped he learned to think twice before threatening ladies.
