Come Back Here!

My affinity for avoiding confrontation is legendary. I've run away from fire. I've run away from floods. I've run away from minor conflict, major conflict, and have to bite on my knuckles when conflict is unavoidable and barreling toward me like a train. I have friends who can vouch for me and it made my time as a reporter, where conflict is part of the job, a good kind of challenge every single week.

With that in mind, I even surprised myself today when I found myself chasing after a guy in an SUV down South Locust Street over my lunch hour.

The baby had problems sleeping last night so I took her downstairs to rock her and fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up it was about 7:45 a.m., leaving me no time to pack my lunch as I bolted around trying to not forget my pants before I flew out the door. This, in and of itself, is not necessarily atypical. It's rare, but not unheard of.

Lunch rolls around, my blood sugar drops, so I drive to Subway on South Locust Street, order my veggie on honey oat and wait in line. The woman hands me the bag with my food and as I'm putting the change back in my wallet, an SUV pulls out of the tiny, ill-conceived parking stall and slams into the back passenger side door. I layed on the horn when it was clear he meant to smash into my mid-sized Sedan, but too late. Two distinct crunches reached my ears and varied profanity escaped my lips.

The driver, a middle-aged Hispanic man, locked eyes with me. He saw me. No way he possibly missed me. Then he put the stick on D and drove away, heading north.

And, my transaction at the window complete, I followed the son of a bitch.

It was instinct as opposed to an informed and reasoned argument. It wasn't "I can write down his license number and report him later" it was "That fucker hit my car! After him!" Also, to be fair, I had no idea what would have happened if he would have pulled over, got out of his car and demanded a confrontation. That might have changed the game a little bit. But at the time, I was after him. I wanted him to know I was following him, and given the way he tried to lose my by flying around back roads, I had his attention.

OK, I'm being overly dramatic. We never hit more than 30 MPH, but I was after him. It was only after about four blocks that reason kicked back in and I grabbed a pen and paper and jotted down his license number. Then he lost me at a stop light.

The number, which I'm resisting the urge to publish here, is probably destined for the trash. My car is a dozen years old and the scratch on my car doesn't bother me. Had he gotten out at the Subway, we would have exchanged a few words (sorry, I didn't see you. No problem, man. There's almost no damage) and that would have been that. But he ran and I chased him.

And to be honest, I'm kind of proud of myself, even though the story ends in a sputter. I can tell you, though, lunch tasted really good.