An Open Letter To A Dick
Dear Tardy McAsshole Von F***tard,
You looked so slick in your bespoke suit, your polished wingtips, your neatly trimmed hair. You strode purposefully, manfully, through the crowd, Wall Street Journal tucked under your arm, eyes fixed ahead. You couldn't have been a broker or hedge fund manager - too late in the morning to be on the subway, and to be on the subway in the first place - but still, you smelled of business and money clips and your walk told me that you probably had some meeting to get to, some merger to oversee, some economy to destroy.
That's what I saw, anyway, as you strode toward me, the mom, shuffling along in capri pants and scuffed ballet flats and wrinkled Gap t-shirt, pushing the Maclaren, singing to the toddler fidgeting within. I don't know if you saw me, I don't know what you saw, but I do know this: we were in your way.
We were pushing our way through the open-gated ticket entrance, the one that strollers and wheelchairs use, the one that isn't supposed to be used as an exit, the one that you were exiting through anyway. There was you, and there was us, and there were twenty or forty or a hundred other commuters thronging through the downtown station and we got stuck. We were coming in, you were coming out. We came to a stop, me and my baby, and we waited for you to step aside. We expected you to step aside.
You didn't.
You stared right over our heads and kept walking. You just kept right on walking. You lifted your perfectly-creased pantleg and stepped over the front-end of the stroller, stepped over the stroller, baby and all, and kept right on walking.
You stepped over my stroller, you stepped over my baby in her stroller, and knocked me in the shoulder as you pushed by. You stepped over my baby and you didn't lose pace, you didn't miss a step, you didn't give it a thought. You have, I'm sure, done this before. Maybe not with a stroller - maybe it was a wheelchair, maybe a walker, unfortunately attached to someone infirm or elderly, someone inconvenient - but with something in your way.
Mr. Tardhole McAsshat, I want you to know this: you're an asshole. The worst kind of asshole, the kind who causes me to lose faith with humanity, the kind who makes me feel that we are, we humans, irredeemable. I hate you for making me so angry on such a beautiful morning.
You looked so slick in your bespoke suit, your polished wingtips, your neatly trimmed hair. You strode purposefully, manfully, through the crowd, Wall Street Journal tucked under your arm, eyes fixed ahead. You couldn't have been a broker or hedge fund manager - too late in the morning to be on the subway, and to be on the subway in the first place - but still, you smelled of business and money clips and your walk told me that you probably had some meeting to get to, some merger to oversee, some economy to destroy.
That's what I saw, anyway, as you strode toward me, the mom, shuffling along in capri pants and scuffed ballet flats and wrinkled Gap t-shirt, pushing the Maclaren, singing to the toddler fidgeting within. I don't know if you saw me, I don't know what you saw, but I do know this: we were in your way.
We were pushing our way through the open-gated ticket entrance, the one that strollers and wheelchairs use, the one that isn't supposed to be used as an exit, the one that you were exiting through anyway. There was you, and there was us, and there were twenty or forty or a hundred other commuters thronging through the downtown station and we got stuck. We were coming in, you were coming out. We came to a stop, me and my baby, and we waited for you to step aside. We expected you to step aside.
You didn't.
You stared right over our heads and kept walking. You just kept right on walking. You lifted your perfectly-creased pantleg and stepped over the front-end of the stroller, stepped over the stroller, baby and all, and kept right on walking.
You stepped over my stroller, you stepped over my baby in her stroller, and knocked me in the shoulder as you pushed by. You stepped over my baby and you didn't lose pace, you didn't miss a step, you didn't give it a thought. You have, I'm sure, done this before. Maybe not with a stroller - maybe it was a wheelchair, maybe a walker, unfortunately attached to someone infirm or elderly, someone inconvenient - but with something in your way.
Mr. Tardhole McAsshat, I want you to know this: you're an asshole. The worst kind of asshole, the kind who causes me to lose faith with humanity, the kind who makes me feel that we are, we humans, irredeemable. I hate you for making me so angry on such a beautiful morning.
I would hope that your balls shrivel up in your pressed cotton boxers and rot. I could hope that, but I won't. What I do hope is this: that one day, you are pushing a stroller, or a walker, or are navigating the city in a wheelchair, and you come face to face to someone just like you. And I hope that, in that moment, you recognize you, and that you shrivel a little inside at the expectation of being shoved or stepped over. And then, I hope, that person stops, and steps aside, and shows you what human beings should be like. Can be like.
And I hope that you feel just a little bit ashamed. Okay, a lot ashamed. And then I hope that you go to hell anyway.
Yours,
Her Very Mad Bad Mother
*********
I would have taken a picture of me lifting my skirt and doing a rude flash, instead of recycling the bird, but I'm just not that bendy. You can, however, still check out my more figurative skirt-lifting here, and vote for me to get presents.
And check back for the announcement of the winner of BlogHer or Bust. IMMINENT.
posted by Her Bad Mother @ Thursday, June 21, 2007
89 Comments:
Man, I thought I knew how to swear, but I have some lessons to learn. Excellent usage of the word "McAsshat". I can totally relate to your fury as well.
There is something essentially anti-human about this particular suit. The sheer act of not even acknowledging another - ugh. I can't even find the words. Where's the decency? Riding the subterranean empire of the TTC should entail an acceptance of community and some shared values. All are deserving of courtesy -- that should be the shared understanding. It seems that this suit didn't get the programme.
May he rot in Hell.
What an ass. I can't believe people can really be like that. I like to make up stories in my head that there is a really good reason for such asshat behavior. However, I can never imagine in my lowest moments doing anything similar.
Dude. I should write the same letter to the schmuck who wouldn't move over on the subway for me (I said move over, NOT EVEN GET UP) when I was 11 months pregnant. 5 years ago. Still mad about that one.
I got pissed on your behalf as I read this. What a CREEP. I really hope karma gets him back someday. It usually does.
GRRRRRR.
Also, very 'meaning of wife'y in that photo. Read it?
What a jerk!
What an assbite. I feel your pissed-offness. I totally do. I just had TWO similar experiences in ONE day with my son but the offenders were WOMEN. I was actually going to blog about it tonight but I decided to write about big dangling balls instead. But stay tuned. We can seeth together.
Fucker.
McAsshole ideed. Here's hoping you got a good shoulder hit in.
My sister used to say that the worst crime in American life was to make someone slow down...I guess that is North American life.
A magnificent and timely post, as I was forced off the pavement by a rather frantic and industrious businessman in London the other day. Yeah, off the pavement and onto the ROAD. No big deal pal, we'll just walk into traffic.
People can be such dweeby nutwads sometimes. Eff them.
that bastard! i've had similar things happen when we lived in a city with a subway. dirty dogs act like children are INVISIBLE. i can't tell y'all how many times people bumped my daughter in the head with bags and elbows. i finally had to teach her to walk with her elbows out and i would put my closed umbrella out over her head. i don't know why i was always amazed at how rude people were in the subway, especially at rush hour. nothing like that ever happened on the bus.
That's outrageous. It leaves me speechless.
I've always wondered what could render a stroller invisible. I can't count the number of times I've had groups of people walking right at me on a sidewalk and nobody moves over, even though there's no way for me to get any narrower than the stroller. A few inches, a few seconds--it's not too much to ask for, is it?
Sice Karma is the only belief system I subscribe to, I have to believe that one day, he will get his. But like you, I hope it is not in the form of retribution, but that he is shown what a fucktard he really is and feels deep embarassment for himself.
Believing that the world is cyclical is what keeps me from weeping at the 5 o'clock news or punching the tool who didn't stop at the crosswalk to let my baby and I cross the street.
However, I still would secretely wish Prick McBastard's testicles would rot.
I was in the United lounge at LaGuardia last week with the girl and we were the only females outside of the airport lounge staff. Monkeygirl was in a great mood but as a toddler, she was loud. You wouldn't believe all the dirty looks we got from the biznissmen!
Boo-f***ing-hoo to them all - we all share this world.
Fantastic. I hate those asshats too.
Oh how I love when somebody can so eloquently say fuck off.
What an asshole! Unbelievable.
What goes around comes around...he will get his eventually. Perhaps after he stepped over you and Wonder Baby he tripped around the next corner and plunged down a small flight of stairs. Woke up at the bottom and was instantly sorry.
Here is another thing that bothers me huge. When I open a door, either by holding it or using the button and then people start rushing through so by the time I get the stroller through the door is closing or my arm is breaking from having it propped open. Now I say something each and every time it happens. The funny thing is most people are so shocked they just stare at me. Most will then stop and actually hold it for me, not all though.
Morons.
Because she'd BAD, she's BAD, you know it she's BAD!
They don't call you "Her Bad" for nothing!
Go on, with your bad self!
Gross. Just gross behavior. Let's hope it happens to his wife someday while she is with their baby. Then she can rant and rave to him and he can remember the moment with you (and probably others; you are right that he likely does this all the time).
What an ass.
A guy with an SUV parked next to me recently tried to ask me to let him by while I was doing up the straps of Cakes' carseat. I gave him a frosty look and told I would be just a few seconds. He actually went around and got in the other side!
Dude. You just totally annihilated my belief in the slightly chewier goodness of Canadians.
I used to have a shit job at the U of Chicago law school and one day I was standing on the pull side of some really heavy glass doors, with my hands full of water bottles and apples for his majesty, the dean and his esteemed visitor, Michael Miliken and 4 professors stood on the push side of the heavy glass doors and waited for me to use my super flunky powers to open the door for them. This is a true story. And it's why I always tell people how awful the U of Chicago is. Because that is completely the ethos there. Blech.
There's a doughy part of me that wants to say the asstard in question--yours--is going through some shit, but even I can't always suspend my disbelief in the ugliness of some humans enough to really believe that.
God, don't you wish we could figure out a way to send this post to him and to all the fucktards we encounter too often?
Dude. That is SO UNCOOL.
In your shoes? I don't know if I would have been silent with outrage or screaming, "Hey Jerky McJerk!"
Wow.
I like the open letter.
Asshat is still my favourite word. I'd have probably said "ooh has anyone told you how cute you are in that suit," and when he said no I would have yelled "well it's because you're a fucking asshole, that's why! What kind of.... (finish tirade however you want, but I'd include now turn back around and get in line with the rest of the people on the subway jerkoff).
You know this city is crawling with those asshats. There are more and more prevalent these days as well. Ugh. The world seems to revolve around them and only them.
Oh how I would have loved to see his pant leg catch the stroller and watch him fall flat on his smug asshat of a face.
Dick.
You know what makes me even MORE livid than the Male Asshat, HBM? The female version. The female version who is capable of bearing children, hell, who may even have children of her own at home...
Once, a long time ago, I was at a craft show with my four week old Child Number One. A rawther large woman and I did one of those "face-offs" in front of a kiosk that we were both trying to look in. The bitch looked down her nose at me, and said to EVERYONE in the room, "GAWD!! I can't believe they'd ALLOW STROLLERS in here!! They're ALWAYS in the WAY..."
I confess, HBM, I was hormonal... hormonal, and I stooped way WAAAAY down to her level, when I loudly replied, "Hey, if they allow fat, stupid people like YOURSELF in here, then what's a few strollers??"
Amazingly, she didn't flatten me. She actually stepped aside.
I wish the Asshat had given you enough time and opportunity to say what was on your mind TO HIS FACE. I would have paid money for a ticket to THAT.
cocksmoker.
may I try to redeem your faith in humankind? i take the subway twice a day, every day, and regardless of how crowded, hot or miserable the subway was, i have been offered a seat on every ride. every one. i feel embarrassed constantly accepting the offers. but then i do.
You know what? I bet we have his picture on DSS....
Cause he seems JUST the type to post a cock shot for the whole world to enjoy.
Maybe he thought you were so beautiful and so breathtaking that had he stopped to help you, your smile would have melted his heart and he wouldn't be able to carry on with his life, leaving him a helpless shrivel of a man. So he had to be rude to push you away. Think "You're beautiful" by James Blunt.
Or he really is just a jackass.
If I was in Canada, I would buy you a coffee after the McF***ktard incident :(
M&M
He's a douchebag.
Dawn, I am going to find that picture and caption it accordingly.
Here's hoping he loses all of his money in the stock market, and ends up homeless pushing his meager belongings around in someone's well-used and now discarded stroller.
Mr. Tardhole McAsshat, indeed.
This kind of behaviour is one of my all-time favourite signs of the downfall of humanity. That is, a mind-boggling INconsideration of other folks.
I believe firmly in the concept of karma; somewhere, his is lurking around a corner, waiting to spill a double-large Starbucks frappawhosits down his make-up-for-a-tiny-penis powersuit.
Damn, I've seen rude and asshole-ish, but that takes the cake! Karma will come back to bite him in the ass.
McAsshat is right!
That's when a well timed and appropriately bitchy "EXCUSE ME!" just slips out of my mouth.
yes, the asshat deserves a little karma thrown his way...
I hate those moments. Hate them.
Yesterday in union station I was in a big hurry - running for my train, and this little girl in a stroller waved at me with her ice cream. I walked right past, and didn't wave, realized it, and turned around and went to wave back.
I felt like a big dork until I read this. Not the same, but the little things.
Some people are oblivious.
What a dick.
I swear, it doesn't matter what city you're in - subways are hotbeds of terribly rude behavior.
Wow. Just...wow. What a jerk!
I hope you feel better now that you got that off your chest and can go about enjoying the blue sky..
Ass! I cannot stand that sort of entitled attitude. I hope you enjoyed the rest of your day HBM.
What? You didn't know that his money is more important than your baby? Ick -- what a jerk. You said it perfectly -- great post.
gee people can be so frickin rude.hope the rest of your day was greatHBM.LAVENDULA
What an arse. Hopefully in his haste he fell onto the tracks. A walkover deserves a runover.
I had a similar experience when I was 7 months pregnant and had a 3 year old and a 17 month old in tow. I was waiting to get on a shuttle bus at an airport. The doors opened and some bitch nearly knocked us over to get on the shuttle before us. I was pissed! Once we got on and we were offered a place to sit rather than stand by a nice human being, I looked over at her and said, "I'm sorry, were we in your way?" She gave me the I-don't-know-what-you-are-talking-about look as the people around us snickered.
Jerk.
Not to dispel Kgirl's uplifting comment, but I can count on one hand the number of times I have been offered a seat on the subway. On one hand for BOTH pregnancies. In fact, I have had to give up MY seat in favour of someone who is further along in their pregnancy, because no one else was willing to do so.
Have I mentioned that I hate the subway crowd?
yeah, but was he hot?
dude. kidding. it's the high and mighty ones that get to me the most. we shall NOT be disregarded.
go, you.
NME - I had the same bad fortune on the subway - and more so on the streetcars - when I was pregnant. I once stood in front of a young couple, seated comfortably, chatting about facking yoga classes, for like four stops before the woman stage-whispered to her friend 'I THINK THAT LADY'S PREGNANT (I was nine months and out to *here*) SHOULD I GIVE HER MY SEAT???'
I said, 'I'm pregnant, not deaf, and as I've stood here in front of you for ten minutes I think that I can last the 45 seconds to my stop.'
Tards, all of them.
i think we would do our children a great service, during the impressionable adolescent years, by mandating somehow that they spend as much time as possible in other people's shoes, or wheelchairs, or skin, or position.
anybody figures out how to make that happen, call me.
I've always wondered why people are like that, especially the ones in suits. The ones who think kids aren't supposed to exist in thier world. I love how you ended this letter. I really hope it is them one day wiht the baby and the stroller and the asshole in the way not caring. But when that day does come for them, they'll probably be an ass to the younger version of them.
You described him so perfectly I could see him -- smell him -- in all of his glory.
You go with your bad self, mama. YOU GO.
When I was pregnant and people would be a**hats on subways and the like, I always had one fantasy. That we would hit a crazy bump and my balance would be thrown. I would land plumb on top of their righteous laps, injurying them severely. Or at least making them quite uncomfortable. I would be perfectly fine of course, because I had been sufficiently padded with roughly 50 pounds of baby weight. Then as I slowly, clumbsily (spelling?) craned my weight of said jerk, I would say something clever like "shoulda given me your seat moron."
Thank you so much for that -- for all the ones who act like that and I can't swear in front of the PunditGirl. Thank you for being bad for me!
Oh oh oh! I have a story! I look younger than my actual age and when I first had the girl I looked younger still - at 27, I looked 17 or so, which I didn't help by dressing like a 10 year old boy. So I'm pushing the girl in her huge cumbersome stroller into a doorway with two guys in suits in front of me. The guy in the back turned around and said, loudly, "I'm so sick of all you teenaged moms with your little bastards thinking that the world owes you anything. You should have aborted that little tax-drain" and then let the door slam right on the stroller.
And then the owner of the shop who knows me and was my friend came over and punched him in the face. It was swell.
Do you mind if I print out oh, say a million copies of this to hand out in the NY subways?
What Jerk!!! I am coming home to Brooklyn in a week with my 3 year old son and I just hope I run into this AssHat just so I can knock him over in his Armani knock off suit and run over his face with my stroller. While I am at it may be I'll let my son get all Simeon on his ass and fling poo at him... LOL Just kidding. This is horrible has New York City really gotten that bad?
An asshole of the proportion likely wears tighty whities. That's my guess. He thinks he's cool, but he's not - hence the tight whities.
See, most of y'all are imagining he's going to A) remember doing this, and B) have remorse or embarrassment at some point in the future.
I'm sorry folks, but, my negative mind says NOT LIKELY! - someone that completely thoughtless, clueless, and blind, is probably never going to wake up in this lifetime. Sigh.
You are my hero, dear lady. This completely made my day... know there are many moms who have encountered asshats like these... including teens who refuse to stop hogging the whole freaking sidewalk (trying to avoid eye contact as well) and have the nerve to bad mouth me and my 6 yr old and her 2 yr old sister in the stroller for refusing to budge. We played an evil match of chicken and mommy blogger won.
May his balls get stuck in the zipper of his tailored pants after taking a leak with his very small penis.
That's some seriously good ranting, sister. Amen!
Most excellent letter.
I work in the world of law, and your post made me think of a BC human rights case, in which a woman in a wheelchair won a case involving a narrow public walkway. Part of her argument was that it was discriminatory that she had to constantly call attention to herself by saying "excuse me!" and getting people to move over so she could pass. Seems like people relying on wheelchairs, strollers and walkers can choose between invisibility and involuntary hyper-visibility.
Here's the case if anyone is curious: http://www.bchrt.bc.ca/decisions/2004/pdf/Moser_v_District_of_Sechelt_ 2004_BCHRT_72.pdf
Douche. Douchey McDoucherson.
You. Go. Girl.
Your wish for him at the end is just elegant and karma-twisitng and rising above it all. Loved it.
I have dealt with this so often. Once in winter I was waiting for the bus with the girl and her light stroller and a regular bus came along. I normally wait the 5 mins for the next accessible bus but it was too cold. Well, to make the story short, no one offered me help with the stroller and as I tried to lift it with Isa in it I almost fell backwards. And the bus driver just gave me this look from his seat of 'hurry up woman'. No one helped me, I had to lift the stroller all by myself while there were three men seating at the front who were in perfectly good health.
Needless to say that I was livid, I wished that I would have been able to tell everyone on that bus off but I could not. Thanks for saying how I feel almost every day of the week. That is why now during the summer months I walk home. Even if it takes me an hour at least I don't have to deal with the public transit.
Bon, just read your comment. You know, my hubby lectured last year at something called "The Abilities Expo," which includes a great big exhibit hall full of wheelchair accessible vans and other tech devices for people with physical disabilities. It was great to bring my five year old to a place where he could ask all his "Mommy, why is that man in a wheelchair?" questions in an environment where the vendors were willing to explain how cool it was to be able to invent something to help people do things that he could do so easily. It really did let him see the people behind the disability. I hope that means they will not be invisible to him when he grows up.
Whenever he asked me about a peron with an apparant disability, I always tell him, well, why don't you politely ask him? I think that's the right thing to do. Anyone ahve ideas on that?
Today I offered a seat to an aged fellow on the streetcar. For that I don't expect a medal or an Order of Canada - it's just common decency. He thanked me, I replied "You're welcome" and left it at that.
Daily I hold doors open for people with prams -- offering assistance wherever I can -- carrying them -- offering seats on transit...whatever. I'm able bodied, unencumbered and am not in want of assistance but cognizant that, one day, I may be in need of some sort of accomodation.
Where will the shekels get Mister Asshat? A better grade of puree at the aged persons' home? Real prunes instead of stewed?
Next time ram him with the stroller.
Wonderbaby can take him.
Humans are probably completely unredeemable by anything other than a divine force or but it's better not to be reminded of that. When people do such things what I am mad about is that they REMIND ME.
But alas, almost everything I read also does that.
Still, we are cute when we are babies--pretty much up until our early teens. There's always that.
What a jerk. And a clever name like Mr. Tardhole McAsshat seems to good for him.
I had my own encounter with an asshole like this in the parking lot last week. He almost ran over me and my two girls as we were walking in a handicapped walkway between two cars, a place not meant to be driven through, but he did anyways. When I gave him a look he rolled down his window and yelled, "Stop taking up the whole road." The only consolation was he had a young son in the car who looked so, so embarrassed of his fucktard of a dad. I felt sorry for the kid, but hoped he gave his dad hell. Someday.
wow, I admire your restraint-- As he stepped over I probably would have shoved him so he fell.
But excellent use of nouns as adjectives....
my favourite response in a situation like this, and yes i've used it MANY times is, "oh, i'm sorry i didn't realize i was still wearing MY INVISIBLE SUIT!!" usually to be followed by a quiter ..."asshole"....
what a prick.
I can't stand people like that.
sadly the world is full of others just like him.
Oh, I hope he is NEVER pushing a stroller, because no kid deserves him for a father.
You should have tripped him or rammed him with the stroller.
The world is full of *ssholes like this... I 'll never understand who raises these people!
I give you complete credit for not kicking that guy in the shins or telling him to F*%& off! This is an awesome, well-written post, I will definitely be a return visitor on this blog.
As mom to a 2 year old, I totally can relate to the decline in humanity! Thank God for blogs where we can vent and share our stories like this because we're too polite to say anything to the dickheads!
I think you can guarantee that someone that self-involved, that self-important, would never be pushing a stroller. Because, you see, that wouldn't be important enough... He's got meetings to be at, dollars to earn, and surely that would be someone else's job? I mean, why else would he even have a wife and nanny, anyhow?
Too bad he didn't trip, then you could have backed over him several times.
nicely spoke badmother
Has anyone ever told you that you're hot when you rant?
Damn. Fuck 'em, on behalf of every "inconvenient" person, fuck 'em.
Now I'm off to read about Izzy's dangling balls...
You're right; someday, he'll be the one stepped over. Or stepped on!
Mcasshat [[snicker]]!
I would have felt compelled to ram him with the stroller, what a rotten fetid piece of humanity.
Amen. Amen. Amen.
I cannot stand rudeness of this kind. Some manners please!
Fucktard. I see many like him on my daily commute and it never fails to piss me off.
I love the word Fucktard. LOVE IT.
Awful. I wish you would have stuck out your foot and tripped him.
her grace - so do I.
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