posted by Evi on Mar 6
One of my braver moments (or maybe stupider, however you may look at it) occurred during my working days in NYC. I was heading back to my office after lunch and stepped into an almost empty elevator. The only other passenger was a little old man.
Just as the doors were about to close, another man got in. He wasn’t the usual businessman; in fact, he looked like someone who just walked in off the street. He turned around and faced the elevator doors. I was standing in a corner in the rear of the elevator.
Then I noticed the man start taking slow backward steps. I remember thinking that if he took one more step back he would be standing on top of me. Well, he made the mistake of taking that one more step. Without even thinking, I hauled off and punched him in the back! Scared the shit out of him; he couldn’t get out of the elevator soon enough.
As soon as he was out and the doors closed again, the little old man turned to me and said, “I think you scared him more than he scared you.”
By the time I got to my office, I was shaking. I told my co-workers what happened and they told me I was lucky he didn’t hit me back. At the time, I hadn’t even thought of that.
Nowadays if you pulled something like that, the other person would probably turn around and stomp you to death.
There have been other times when I’ve reacted without thinking it through first. When I was a kid, there was this neighborhood bully named Leroy who was a few years older than I. One of his favorite means of self-entertainment was trying to run me down with his bicycle.
Now you have to understand, I was very shy and totally unable to open my mouth and stand up for myself. But one day I had had enough. Here came good ole’ Leroy on his bicycle heading straight for me. This time I stood my ground and when he got up to me, I raised my little hand and slapped him square in the face.
I’m sure this surprised him as much as it did me. But from that day forward, he never bothered me again. So the moral of this story is – stand up to bullies and don’t take any crap.
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