There are times in life where we really just have to step back and realize that something in someone else’s life must have really gone wrong because otherwise that someone has no good reason to be yelling at you.
Traveling the speed limit on your own street should not, in reality, set off your neighbors.
But in order to give ourselves that chance to step back, we usually need a calm atmosphere to do so in. And said neighbor being at least 24 times your size and walking over to you with their two mid-sized, barrel-chested black dogs is NOT in any way shape or form a calm atmosphere.
So instead of realizing that he just needed to vent at someone and that I happened to be the intended target (a process that happens on a regular basis for me because I work in retail), I went in high defensive mode. After repeatedly saying that the mans claims were unfounded, I started asking him to back off. And what does he do? Threatens to have my car towed.
What?
Fortunately that was the end of it. And thank God, people I trust were standing on the other side of the door.
However, being approached and yelled at by a 300 pound man with his two dogs on your own doorstep? That doesn’t make me feel safe at all. And believe me when I say I am definitely getting a can of mace.
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Additional thoughts from over a year later (January 2014):
This incident is one that I count among my experiences that have lead me to my current views on gender equality. It strikes me as odd that a large man would come after and yell at a short, stick of a girl because to him, he thought she was breaking a law. It was confrontational. Yes, clearly there must have been other things going on in his life. But he saw it necessary to threaten someone who was already threatened by his tone and size. And he saw it as being okay to bring the dogs. Dogs that more than one neighbor had seen get into fights with other neighborhood dogs, and had injured my roommate’s dog at one point.
This man clearly thought this was okay.
He may have been drunk. It still doesn’t excuse his behavior. Part of me wonders how his family lives with him. I outright wonder if there is abuse in his household.
I have managed to get past this incident. But I will never forget the amount of fear and adrenaline I had running through my system during the confrontation, and the very thin thread of control I felt I had as my brain scrambled to find an exit to the situation without the dogs attacking me. And I have never, ever, been scared of a dog in my life – until that moment.