Just to demonstrate that every cloud has a silver lining or whatever, I’ll recount my experience a few weeks ago. I drove 35 miles to the closest movie theater, which is located in a city right across the state line. I bought my tickets and was about to go into the screening room. I decided at the last moment, however, that I didn’t like the ten bucks in my pocket. It was naughty. Bad, bad money! The quickest way to dump ten bucks is to buy a watered down Coke and an artery choking trash can sized bucket of buttery and salty but oh so delicious popcorn. I proceeded to find a place in the poorly organized line at the concession stand. I waited about five minutes, restlessly checking my watch the whole time, but finally I made it to the front of the line. By that point, the only people in the vicinity of the register were the attendant, who looked like he’d just as soon stab his own eyes out if it meant he could get away from the place, a mother with two small children, and little old me. The mother and the kids were standing off to the right and were technically not in line. She was bickering with the kids about whether or not they deserved popcorn and Sweet Tarts. It didn’t look like they were anywhere close to making a final decision. The attendant indicated that he could take the next person in line. The mother didn’t even acknowledge him. But I waited the usual three to five seconds for her to step up—I’m chivalrous like that—but she didn’t. Concluding that she was not ready yet, I walked up to give my order.

“It’s not like we were waiting in line or anything,” she quipped behind me. It took me by surprise because I really did think her body language indicated that she wasn’t ready to order. But still, my old fashioned and parent-instilled politeness took over.

“I’m sorry,” I said in the most disarming way possible, at the same time stepping aside. “Please, go ahead.”

“Oh, nooooo,” she responded with a tone of voice that would kill small kittens dead in their tracks and make puppies cry. The condescension in her voice was so palpable I wouldn’t be surprised if it had a pulse. “Go ahead. You’ve already staarrrted!”

She was setting me up for a fight, and I decided I was not doing this. My job puts me in contact with the entire spectrum of the population. While there are some people who must be hiding their angel wings under their shirts, there are others who must do a comb over to conceal the horns on their heads. This lady was definitely part of the latter group. It’s one of those unpleasant facts that takes a few life lessons to realize, those facts that you sort of wish would have been left unlearned. Some people are just mean. There are not happy unless everyone around them is miserable. Whatever tasks these people appear to be doing when dealing with the public—buying groceries, shopping for socks, or getting prescriptions filled—is secondary to their real goal. No, their true intention is just be A-holes. To be fair, sometimes perfectly friendly folks have bad days and just go off for whatever reason. We’re all human. But everyone here knows at least one person who enjoys being a sh*thead. Maybe this lady had been battling her kids all day and was just frazzled. Maybe she was a nice lady who just snapped for a second. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, although as you’ll see she was probably just a bitch all day long.

Whatever, I wasn’t going to take the bait. I could argue with people like her and get paid for it. I wasn’t doing it on my day off. Plus, the movie was about to start.

“Please,” I reiterated. “I insist. I’m not in any hurry, and I didn’t realize you were ready to order.”

She huffed, stepped in front of me, and seemed to be about ready to place her order. But, no, she had to throw out one last bitch grenade.

“Kids these days and their manners,” she mumbled to the attendant like she had just made the most enlightened and significant statement since prehistoric man blurted out the word “boobies” for the first time many millennia ago.

When she said this, the attendant looked at her and then me with that deer in the headlights look in his eyes. This poor kid just knew he was about to be witness to an argument that would probably result in security being called in. And honestly, I think anyone in my position would be entitled to go on a rant at this point. This lady was just being nasty for no good reason.

Instead of blowing my top, however, I had to concentrate very hard not to laugh out loud (which would undoubtedly prolong the situation and make me miss the previews). You see, while this woman had no idea who I was, I knew her. She must have relatives or something where I live because a few months back I had filled a prescription for her at the pharmacy.

On this particular day, standing in line listening to this lady spew her venom, I was not dressed in my customary polo shirt and slacks that I wear on the job. Instead, I was wearing my usual “thank God I didn’t have to work today” attire, which consisted of a wickedly cool Smallville t-shirt, frayed chino shorts, and New Balance sneakers that had once been white and should have been thrown away years ago. Add this to the fact that I’m short and look very young for my age, and I can understand where she could perceive me as being some youngster who was far inferior to her, a big, bad, and self-important adult. She was a grownup who was chastising some ill-mannered kid. Yes, she was “schooling” me, all right.

Instead of doing what the theater employee expected—and in all honesty what the lady probably wanted—and going into attack mode, I did something he didn’t see coming, something that was visibly a relief for him. He looked at me, and I gave him a quick cross-eyed expression that he had to look away from to keep from cracking up over, a laugh which would undoubtedly give the lady’s poisonous attitude a brand new target.

Why did I take it in stride, you might ask? Well, while it’s true that the lady was nasty enough to make the devil pee his pants, she was also pretty hot…ok, really hot. And one of my many faults as a single guy is that I have a one track mind when it comes to beautiful women. Regardless of their attitudes, I tend to remember their details. When I filled the lady’s prescription, I remember her year of birth being 1982, making her roughly 26 years old.

This month I’ll celebrate my birthday, an occasion that seems to be recurring much too frequently the older I get. I’ll be 35. Not only does it seem to come back around every two weeks, far too quickly for my liking, I don’t get the cool presents anymore because my mom refuses to buy Transformers for a 35 year old man. She bought me a Spider-Man alarm clock last year, though. Mom is weird and not at all consistent, God bless her.

Anyway, what could have turned into an ugly situation that would have totally ruined my day instead turned into an ego-stroking moment that will probably keep my fragile self confidence fueled for years to come. Because on this day a smoking hot but miserably hateful 26 year old woman put some “kid” in his place—a “kid” who was almost ten years her senior.

You can’t buy good press like that.

The end.

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