Not working at a desk in the same spot every day is quite a change. And being out there driving every day is totally new to me. One day last week driving in bumper to bumper traffic through a construction zone, I was stopped at a light. And stopped .. and stopped .. and stopped .. Heh. To my left was a turn off and there was a van parked there and there was a nicely dressed woman outside the van reaching in through the drivers side. My first thought was that she pulled off because her kids were giving her trouble but my next thought was - looks like she's being pretty rough. When she pulled back to wind up for a closed fist punch I saw a man sitting in the driver's seat and realized she was whaling on him! He didn't raise a hand, looked like he was holding onto the steering wheel while she pulled his sweater and punched and slapped .. and then the light changed and traffic actually moved. I drove away fully aware that if that had been a woman getting the crap beat out of her someone would have jumped out of their car to help her. But because it was a man .. it became that weird double standard kind of thing .. and no one moved to do anything. It was disconcerting to be faced with that and to realize I was one who did nothing. Still .. a police car came whizzing by a few minutes later so obviously someone did something, even if it wasn't actually physically restraining anyone. I have to admit to being somewhat dumbstruck by the whole thing. The last thing I expected at that moment was to see a woman beating the crap out of a guy who wasn't fighting back at all. Didn't expect to see anyone assaulting someone I guess. What is so bad that you have to stop your car to beat up the person with you? Weird.
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I know I would never try to stop something like that man or woman. But I think I would call the police. I have had to do it before and wouldn't hesitate to do it again. You can't be to careful these days. But I figure before its all over you will see some very strange things on the road.
ReplyDeleteIt was weird because there was bumper to bumper traffic and it was like every single car was frozen ..
DeleteI know - but it's kind of shocking to realize how we react differently to each!
ReplyDeleteWhat is twice as bad is that he is the one driving. Picture this, he knows what he has coming to him as he is use to this sort of thing from her and figures he should not get into an accident because of being hit while he is driving, so he pulls over.
ReplyDeleteYour right, if it were a women being hit people would stop. It is so sad to think that way, but how many men take a beating all the time and never report it because of how it will look if they walked into a police station to report being beaten up by their wife.
I know. And I was one of those who drove away. :(
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