Finding Positive Inspiration Through the Rude Behavior of Others

If you’re going to pull something childish and rude on people in public, you better make sure you’re not messing around with the wrong person. The wrong person may just be a blogger, like me, who’s going to share your story with the public.

Okay, really if you’re going to pull something childish and rude on people in public it may be better advice to not do whatever it was you were going to do in the first place.

Anyway, lucky for these teen girls I’m not the type of person to blast their personal information online. The woman behind me in line, however, isn’t quite so forgiving. She took a picture of their license plate, which I’m pretty sure belonged to their parents based on the bumper sticker, and was planning to post it on Facebook along with the story of what happened. Which, in all honesty, isn’t all that impressive or outrageous. Just childish and rude.

Don’t worry, there’s a point to my story that’s related to positive living. I promise.

Here’s the story.

Childish and Rude

Backstory

I had a wonderful afternoon at the local forest for a homeschool class with my girls and on the way home my oldest got a migraine. I get migraines. They hurt. She felt it coming on, but there was nothing we could do. We were on the road so I couldn’t remove all sounds or light like we can at home.

She wailed in pain. This is not the normal behavior for her, unless she is in extreme pain, which she was in. There wasn’t anything I could do. She hurt, she cried, and I just had to drive and listen to it. It’s heartbreaking.

Finally she managed to fall asleep. It’s a 40 minute drive home, and I’d endured the wailing for at least a good 20 minutes. My nerves were shot. I needed a Starbucks fix. Since she was sleeping I figured a small detour would give her some extra time to sleep since she would wake up when we got home.

The Drive Thru

I pulled into Starbucks drive thru and put my blinker on. The drive thru lane is fairly short and it comes in off of another service road. The practice is to keep the road open to wait for the line to move up with your blinker on so people know to wait behind you or go around if they want another store in the area.

I had my blinker on. I waited patiently.

The line started to move up so I started to pull forward. Out of nowhere (ok, from behind me) this black SUV quickly pulls out of line and cuts me off forcing me to block traffic. The teen girls in the vehicle were obviously laughing and high fiving, at least from what I could see and I was stunned.

I was angry.

Here I was doing my part to play by the rules, only to be forced into a position of blocking traffic while being mocked for it. That’s right, those teen girls were turned around laughing and waving.

My blood was beginning to boil. I said a few choice words I’m not entirely proud of (yes the kids were in the car, yes they’ve heard those words before, and no they don’t use them, we have our own family rules about that).

I managed to maneuver my way out of traffic and opted to go in the store. The woman in the vehicle behind me followed and asked me about those girls. She then went over and got a picture of their license plate, while they laughed and waved at her, obviously proud of their accomplishment.

That’s basically the end of the story. I chatted with the woman, we shared our thoughts on the situation and agreed they are lucky they didn’t do that to the wrong person. Most people in this world are okay, but you never know when you’re going to find someone who has anger issues, is on drugs, or something else that can cause them to not think rationally in that situation.

After the Drive Thru

I should also add that after I left I somehow managed to get behind these teens at the lights, where they again turned around laughing and waving. I ignored them and they turned around and got a picture of me. Not sure why or what that would do. I’m also thinking they got a picture of my license plate at Starbucks, again not sure why. I didn’t do anything to them.

There’s a good possibility I scared them though, because since I was behind them on my way home, they may have thought I was following them. Eventually they turned off into a neighborhood rather suddenly, and while I wasn’t actually following them (I was honestly on my way home and that was the most direct route) I was just behind them, I think it may have scared them just a bit because the laughter was gone from their face, and the one girl I noticed looked a bit worried that I would swing around and follow them more.

Positive Living Takeaways

Why am I sharing this rather uneventful story with you?

Because for me my emotions ran high. I was already stressed dealing with my daughter, I was looking for a moment of peace and received mocking. That’s enough to upset anyone. And I didn’t handle the situation as well as I could have.

1. I allowed a rude behavior to push me into anger. I cannot control the actions of others, I can only control my reaction to it. Making that reaction a bit less emotional is something I need to work on. My personal assessment is that my strong emotions were more than what the situation called for. Yes, expressing emotions is healthy, but with my anxiety, sometimes I do feel some emotions a bit stronger than what I would consider normal. Meditation and breathing exercises need to happen again for me. They always seem to help me keep my emotions in check.
2. Even though unintentional, I did feel that I was using a bit of intimidation at the end (though it did feel good). Yes, I honestly was going home, they just happened to be going in a similar direction. I have no idea how they got in front of me again because I wasn’t trying to make that happen. I didn’t even know where they went after the drive thru.

Over all I hope these girls learn some manners or they are going to get themselves into trouble. I’m thankful for a minor incident like this to give me some reminders about positive living and spark a few more blog post ideas to share in the future. It was also a good lesson for my girls about how not to act and why. They did have questions and I had answers.

Final Thoughts For You

After reading through this post, I hope the message is clear. Be kind to others, don’t be childish and rude, and above all else, remember you aren’t responsible for the actions of other people, you are only responsible for your own actions (and you kids, at least as far as the law takes it).

On another note remember that no one is perfect and we all have a lot of growing to do. Learn from your mistakes and see what you can do to correct them. You can be sure that tonight I’ll be having some tea and quiet time for some self care.

Has someone ever done something to you in public that made your blood boil? What happened? How did you react? Looking back, would have have liked to have done something differently? Share your story in the comments below.