I would say it’s been an atypical week, for the following reasons:

1. It was a 3-day week, due to the long weekend and my choice to take a day off on Friday.

2. We had to put one the household cats, Nipper, to sleep this week. It wasn’t totally out of the blue; he’s had a host of health problems for years and was nearly 17. That’s pretty old for a cat. It happened in the best possible way; we caught an oncoming health problem before he was in any pain. But he had been in my life, even if he wasn’t really my cat, for nearly 17 years. That’s longer than I’ve had most of my friends. He will be missed.

3. I got an iPad, in case you don’t follow me on Twitter or really don’t know me at all. I’m writing this from it, with the assistance of a Bluetooth keyboard.

4. I was made fun of, in public, by a random passerby, for the first time in years. For my weight, truth be told.

Number 4 was a very surreal experience. It’s not the first time…actually, it might be. First time since high school anyway. I ignored it. Plain and simple. Gave no indication I had even heard the guy. He continued to yell as I walked away, not specifically at me, basically saying “Look at that guy!”

I play it over in my head and wonder if I made the right call, but I know I did. I was with people and it would have been totally rude and crazy of me to make a scene and yell back. And any kind of physical confrontation is way outside of anything I’d ever do.

I didn’t see the guy, so maybe he was really young. Maybe he was high. Some base part of me argues I should have “manned up” and started a confrontation with the guy. But what would have been the point? He would have learned…what? Not to “mess” with me? I was in an area I will likely never be again. I will never see him again. Not to mention I would have drawn my companions into something unpleasant.

It bothers me. But really, the lesson to be learned here is that we can be better than that. That there will always be people who will do idiotic shit and there will always be people who will yell random shit at you as you walk by just for a laugh or just to make themselves feel better. I’m starting to sound like an after-school special here, but it’s true. The key is how you deal with it and what you take from it.

I choose to take that something about me made him feel like he needed to take me down a peg. Like he needed to assert his superiority over me and debase me to feel better about himself. Which means that deep down, he felt I was better than him, or felt that I thought I was better than him. Something about the way I walked by said that I was someone better.

And that’s a fucking good thing.

Now maybe that’s not the truth. Maybe he saw someone he thought was an easy target, maybe he just wanted a laugh. Hell, to be honest, I’m not even 100% sure he was talking about me, though otherwise the timing would have been uncanny. But I will never know. It’s a shitty situation, and when life gives you lemons…

…you clone those lemons, and make SUPERLEMONS!

Or make the best of a bad situation/lemonade.

Both are good.