I’m still not sure what I did to set you off. I remember a very loud and angry shout: "The fuck’s your problem, fucker!?" and like everyone else, I looked around. Traffic stopped. Trays of food sat suspended above the crowd as waiters looked for you and the source of your anger. We all had to wonder what hideous thing someone had done to upset someone else to that degree. I wondered all this, too, and when I looked over in your direction I hadn’t even considered the possibility that the fucker could be me.
But there you were, poking your head out the window of your taxi cab, cash in one hand reaching over the seat, distractedly paying the driver while sneering my general direction. I glanced at my friend to see if maybe she had somehow been provoking you, but she seemed just as confused as everyone else at the busy sidewalk café that Saturday afternoon. To be fair, I’ve just moved here to Washington D.C., and I suppose there could be some odd customs I’m not familiar with yet. I thought I'd been doing pretty much everything by the book, but every big city is a little different; my native land, Seattle, they actually ticket for jaywalking. I was asked, recently, if I’d rather have good things happen to me, or interesting things. I chose interesting, and maybe you’re just another in a long line of people here in DC, working continuously to fulfill that request. Maybe you even work for some secret government agency set up specifically to create excitement for me here in my new home. If that’s the case, it’s an agency with a very large staff dedicated to me, the pampered client, and I’d just like to say you’re all doing a very nice job.The other night while watching a soccer game in a pub, a drunk guy kept bumping into my friend. Five or six times he bumped and leaned into her while he was talking with a different girl, and finally, after a particularly hard jolt, I had to say something. I was polite in sort of an ass-holey way, I suppose. "Hey," I might have said, standing up from my stool and putting a hand on his shoulder. "Could you please try to get control of your body and stop bumping into my friend? You just spilled her drink... again."He was a little guy and he fired up immediately, all Napoleon-like. My face reflected my surprise about his quick and aggressive response, I guess, as he dared me to raise my eyebrows at him one more time. I did (though involuntarily, as I laughed) and then I asked if he was serious. "Dude," I said, "I’m pretty sure I just asked you, politely, to stop bumping my friend.""Yeah. Politely. Fuck off," he said. I just kept smiling at him, like one smiles in wonder at a problem that's barely fathomable -- something they know they'll never quite figure out. It didn't escalate, luckily (though I had my hands in the Secret Service "ready position" until his friends got him under control). His girl called him an ass. One of his friends apologized and put a twenty on the bar in front of us, offering a round of drinks. And a few minutes later the guy came back over to apologize. He offered his hand. "No big deal," I said. "Don’t worry about it. It was exciting." He apologized three or four more times and bought me a Guinness and my friend her horrible drink: an un-godly mixture of Bailey’s and tequila, which he even had a little sip of to demonstrate his contrition.Then there was the afternoon in Georgetown when the muscular shirtless black guy, a poor-man’s Tyrese on the street, swerved from the other side of the sidewalk to try to bump shoulders with me as I walked past. I moved my shoulder out of the way like a matador and continued on, unperturbed.And the panhandler I confronted about his tiresome shtick: "Can you spare some change so I can buy some water?" As a pan-handling line, I’m sure it’s worked well for him this hot Washington summer, but he wasn’t impressed by my suggestion that maybe he should lower his standards and go with tap water until he gets back on his feet. And my reward for what I thought was a pretty witty quip? Instead of tipping me or offering to buy me a drink so he could be entertained with more hilarity, he stood up from his park bench and yelled mean things at me as I continued down the sidewalk.So, anyway, despite all my interesting experiences, lately, I hope you can understand my surprise (my raised eyebrows again accidentally forcing my Zoolander-esque "for serious?" face) when you exited the taxi and walked directly for me, your brown skirt and fall-colored blouse rippling in the warm, pre-thunderstorm breeze, your curly, tangled hair partially obscuring your scowl as you cursed some more, walking purposefully towards my table, evoking a middle-school art teacher who’d forgotten all her peaceful messages from the sixties but none of the agitation."What the fucking hell is your problem?!" you demanded, again, as you got closer."Are you talking to me?" I asked. I still wasn’t sure. Your glasses were reflective.You swerved away from my table and towards the restaurant door. "Yes, I’m fucking talking to you, fucking asshole!""Ma'am, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about."You mumbled some more words and went into the restaurant. As the door shut behind you, I imagined how cool it would be if I were famous enough to get punked. I looked around for Ashton, just in case.You exited the restaurant just a minute later (after causing more trouble inside, we learned later from the waiter), and you sneered at me again as you walked by my table: "Well, I suppose you picked the right city." If it was a game to see how badly you could confuse me, you won it right there.You jaywalked across the street and into the Whole Foods, and like the rest of the patrons at the café, my friend and I were left with something interesting to talk about and rehash. We attempted, in vain, to figure out exactly what I did. The best we could come up with -- my friend's suggestions -- was: "obviously something very, very bad."So, believe it or not, I’d like to avoid offending you in the future. To that end, I’ve made a list of possible offenses, and I hope you can help me out and select (or prioritize, if more than one) the things I may have done that day to make you so upset: a) Sitting at a sidewalk café on a warm, breezy late afternoon with a girl who was much too pretty, while drinking a beer and eating a blackened steak Caesar salad that was way too tasty.b) Something else very, very bad.c) Other.... and that's all I can come up with.I’ll be looking forward to your reply.
