Little Guy With a Big Mouth - Part 1

Remember that Jimmy Buffet song, Margarettaville? It starts out with "It's nobody's fault" and progresses through "It could be my fault" to "It's my own damn fault".

The "Little guy with a big mount" reference takes me back to my school years when I used to get picked on a lot. Now I'm not saying that anyone deserves to get punched but I expect I could have kept the old yapper shut more and been a touch more invisible. Had I done that I probably wouldn't have gotten punched so much.

It happened again yesterday. Well, not the getting punched part but I was definately the little guy with the big mouth.

It's rare now. It's hard for me to be the little guy when I'm just so darn big but this woman, she was EASILY twice my size (sideways anyway). The confrontation was...well, I guess it was "special".

First you need some background. I'm at the Racetrac. Now for those of you who don't know, Racetrac is much like a Mini Mart or a 7-11. It's a convenience store / gas station. They are running a wonderful promotion where you spend $6.99 on a 22 oz insulated mug and they let you refill it for free all summer long (I've refilled mine 93 times so far - I'm shooting for the Guniess book). Anyway, that's all the background you need.

So I go into Racetrac to fill my cup. I round the corner to get to the soda fountain with my spiffy "fill it as much as you want" cup. I'm a happy guy about to get yet another free soda.

To my immediate right there is a woman with a child filling up a drink. Directly in front of me there is this battleship of a woman standing with her hands on her hips. One elbo is in the corn chips, the other is about 7 inches past the line completed by the woman/child combo filling the drinks.

I notice the arm with the elbow in the corn chips has a "free refill" cup in it (everyone is doing it).

In my judgement a quick arm retraction followed by a half step to the right and I can scoot right by and get to the diet coke so with a big smile I say those magic words "Excuse me please!"

Wall woman pushes her arms out another inch or two, furrows her brow and states "I'm standing here waiting becasue they are out of Dr. Pepper".

"So you are..." I respond, not yet aware that the stand isn't a waiting stance but an agressive attempt to block me from the isle "...so can I get by?".

"I'm not moving until they change the thing and I can get some Dr Pepper" she states boldly.

"Let me get this straight. You are not going to let me get to the soda machine unless or until you get them to change the Dr Pepper surup?" I ask (still polite but now with puzzled face instead of a smile).

"I'm not moving" she states and glares at me.

In an obvious gesture I roll my eyes, back track around the corn chip rack, down the cookie isle, past the donut dispenser and the front counter, around the corner to the other side of the soda machine where although I can't reach the caffine free diet coke, I can get to the other kind.

I fill my cup, pop the lid on and start through the hole to the right of the Dr Pepper protest lady (the hole vacated now that the woman with the little kid have vacated) and as I do the human road block does a studder step to try and block my way.

Decision point. I could accelerate one step, get by and be on my way or I could stop and do the little guy with a big mouth thing.

Surprise! I do the accelerated step narrowly miss the approaching elbow but making it by. I go out to my truck, put the new refill in my cup holder and then I stop and reflect a moment.

The big mouth guy took over. I closed the door on my SUV and headed back in.

Tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion to our exciting story (and post a comment if you are amused so far).