yelling at old people

I'm looking forward to my trip to Toronto at the end of the week for the usual reasons (yoga! -ahhhhh and fressen! -mmmmmm) but there is one part of the trip that I'm not really looking forward to - the upcoming visit to the rest-stop. for most people, this might be bad cause the bathrooms are dirty or something, but I have nothing against the canadian bathrooms (except that they call them washrooms) and I always enjoyed getting out of the car and grabbing some coffee and a donut or some fries, until... well... I started yelling at old people.

I mean, just one old person. so that's not so bad, right? actually, I didn't even yell at her, but she was old. and I did scold her, and I felt terribly about it afterward.

the reason was, she was totally bitching about the service at the Wendy's whose line we were in, and the service was fine. she was just a crabby, mean person, between bossing her friend (who was at least as ancient as her) to go check the lines at the other restaurant and making comments about the people who worked at the Wendy's. and the worst part was, she had some like 10-year-old grandson with her, and he looked like a pretty good kid. so that's some education, gramma!

I always thought growing up in the city means you can ignore anything, but she was so f-ing acid, after about 5 minutes I couldn't even take it anymore and said "well if you think the line is too slow here, why don't you try at the other place," and pointed out how rude she was being. I wasn't surprised that she tried to turn it around and said "well you are rude to say that to me."

so I said real patient and calm like I was explaining to one of my little elementary students: "no, you are being rude."

well, she apologized after that and (even better) shut up. and when I left the line with my order, a few people still in line gave me the thumbs-up or the 'meaningful smile' (which means a thumbs-up). but I still felt awful.

after all, she was old. plus, let's be honest, I just can't take conflict. even if I win.

I'm really afraid what I might do if some codger in front of me takes to long to choose a donut.

*shiver* I am pure evil.