My wife, Elysha, has asked me to refrain from engaging in verbal altercations with strangers in public.
I understand her concern. Shaming someone for their poor treatment of a restaurant worker or a CVS cashier is not worth the chances that the person might attempt to cause me physical harm.
I get it.
It’s also been suggested that these rude, inconsiderate, and sometimes racist jerks might simply be having a bad day. “You never know what someone might be going through,” I’m often told. “Maybe they’re experiencing the worst day of their life.”
I don’t buy this argument at all. Even when I was homeless and awaiting trial for a crime I didn’t commit, I wasn’t rude to service workers, nor did I refer to the Hispanic workers behind the counter at the Burger King as “you people.”
A terrible, no good, very bad day does not excuse indecency.
Still, Elysha’s right. Human beings can act in unexpected and violent ways, so I should be more careful.
But I so love engaging these terrible human beings in verbal combat.
So I’ve made a compromise. Instead of engaging these people, I wait. If they attempt in any way to engage me in any way, I will respond, but otherwise I remain frustratingly silent. This has admittedly led to me occasionally, intentionally placing myself within the lunatic’s eye line in hopes that he or she will somehow attempt to bring me into the altercation, which has actually worked from time to time, but I don’t think Elysha loves this maneuver.
All of this leads me to former Maryland governor and Presidential candidate Martin O’Malley’s recent verbal altercation with acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli.
Cuccinelli was reportedly forced to retreat from a Thanksgiving Eve bash after O’Malley tore into him over his role in enforcing the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies, which including separating families at the border and caging small children.
Why does O’Malley get to yell at people in public but not me?
Yes, Cuccinelli was a known commodity to O’Malley, so the chances of a violent outburst was nil.
And yes, the caging of children at the border is probably more worthy of verbal assault than an aggravated shopper turning to me to complain about the speed of service at the pharmacy.
But still… if Governor O’Malley can get away with something like this – and I’m happy he did, because indecency, cruelty, and evil must be exposed whenever possible – why can’t I?
