adrenaline moments

[hawkwing_lb]

Here is a there-I-was anecdote:

Three in the afternoon. A narrow country road. Myself and the parent in the car behind a piled truck full of clean parsnips, heading out for a lunch of soup. The parent begins to pull out to overtake when from behind us comes some damn fool in a hurry, determined to double-overtake. The parent brakes. The damn fool in a hurry pulls to a halt in front of us. (The parsnip lorry, blissfully ignorant, continues off into the distance.)

Damn fool in a hurry exits his vehicle. Between fifty and sixty-five, short, with the blown-red blood-vessels of a countryman with a drink problem. Dressed like a farmer, or perhaps a plumber, but my gut says farmer. Belligerent little roll in his walk, and I have the impression he's took drink with his lunch. Mother rolls down her window. I exit our vehicle and come around to her side of the car, because all my instincts are yelling that letting this guy get within arms' reach of the window would be a bad idea: he's got the body-language of a bully, and if my mother wants to exchange words that's one thing - although why she doesn't keep her window closed and start reversing on the empty road I don't know - but he's not coming within arms' reach of her window.

Short old bully stops a foot off the front bumper. He does his shouty thing, the parent defuses, and I guess he decides he doesn't want to see if he can take me, because he doesn't get any closer, and when he's vented his spleen for nearly getting himself run into a ditch for his illegal bad driving, he gets back into his car and drives off.

Further analysis on the choice to exit the vehicle on my part. It was a largely instinctive reaction, based on the combination of factors:

a)the parent had demonstrated she was prepared to converse and convincing her to avoid interaction would have given the short old bully sufficient time to come properly alongside;

b)I did not trust his body-language one bit: I don't know what makes me so sure that it was utterly vital to keep him out of arm's reach of a seated driver, and I may be over-reacting, but something in my backbrain was utterly convinced;

c)there was maybe ten seconds to make the decision to get myself in a position where I would be able to physically prevent his coming right up to my mother's window.

The ways in which this decision could have gone badly wrong are obvious. I could've been unlucky with the short old bully's belligerence and pride:sense ratio: he could have seen my standing in his way as provocation, and chosen to escalate the confrontation. In which case physical engagement would have been unavoidable, and one or both of us would've gotten hurt, perhaps badly. I was gambling that as long as I didn't advance on him, and merely remained beside my mother's window blocking his approach, he'd do his shouting from a distance in order to maintain face, and go away without coming closer.

Ideally, in this situation, the parent would have kept her window up and reversed away. (She believes the best of people, though.) As it stands, I think I made a decision appropriate to the circumstances and the yelling of my gut instinct, but it was very much an imperfect decision-making process. (Which is why I'm analysing it now.) I acted on the instinct that he intended actual physical threat to my mother, an instinct which led me to interpose a second, more easily-accessible physical target but one better equipped for self-defence.

I don't know if my instinct was right. I do know I'd rather listen to it - and if need be get myself fucked up in a fight - that let someone presenting like that within arm's reach of my seated mother.

Comments

[anne]

Backbrains know what they're doing. I'd have done the same, although my mom's canny enough to play up the "sweet innocent little old lady" angle. But still. Threats do not belong in the same square mile as my mother.

[hawkwing_lb]

No, they do not.

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Half the battle is being ready for adversity. In your shoes, I would have done exactly the same! ::cough:: One finds, as one gets older, that one can fine -tune such responses.

I raise my cuppa to you!

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Cheers.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you got it exactly right - you provide just enough of a quietly lurking presence to deter blustering bully from getting too close or going too far, without sending him even further over the edge...

Some motorists' lack of self-knowledge is utterly terrifying.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I fear I terribly worried my mother. But wow, that guy's body-language, my instincts, eep.