To the hipster in the the green t-shirt
I’m guessing you don’t remember me. I am the woman who was parked for under five minutes on your street and talking on the phone with my windows rolled up. I just wanted to let you know how your behavior affected me, because maybe, just maybe, you will stop yourself from doing something like this the next time you feel compelled. I was in your neighborhood to pick up my daughter, whose best friend lives around the corner. I lived in Silverlake for sixteen years. My kids went to Ivanhoe, I was president of the PTA, and I used to walk the reservoir with my dog every day. Two years ago, I found out my husband of nearly twenty years was having an affair. Not only was our marriage over, but I was forced to sell my house, the house I’d bought in 1999, before Silverlake was cool. My whole life unraveled. Two years later, my daughters and I are mostly settled in a new neighborhood. I have fought and struggled and pieced together a new life for myself and for my kids. All by myself. With no help from the man who unraveled it.
Recently, it's become clear to me that the career I’ve held for over twenty years is effectively over. Which is depressing enough on its own, but it’s made worse by the fact that I have two daughters in high school who are going to need college paid for. But despite having to start my life completely over from the ground up, I stay positive. I am a great mother, a great friend, and I have faith. So today, I woke up filled with gratitude. The weather is beautiful, my kids are healthy and happy, and I took my older daughter to breakfast. As I waited for an extremely elderly couple to get their walkers into their car so I could take their parking spot, I was blocking a wide restaurant driveway that crossed through the sidewalk. I wanted to give the old couple enough time and room to back their car out, and I wasn’t in any kind of hurry. Just then, as my car was blocking the sidewalk for no more than a minute or two, with plenty of room to walk around, a man who was walking down the street told me to roll down my window. So I did. He then proceeded to scream at me that I was blocking the driveway. He was so angry that he had to walk a few extra feet around the front of my car, that I thought he might hit me. My daughter and I were speechless. He was so angry, over so little. But it rattled me. I mostly got over it a few minutes later, but I kept wanting to go back and ask the guy why he was so mad, why he felt so put out, so entitled to that teeny piece of sidewalk, especially since the only reason I was there was to show respect for a very old couple who just needed a little extra time. I dropped that kid off at home, and I made my way to Silverlake to pick up my other kid. In the meantime, my mom called. She is getting old and lives across the country, and I really owed her a phone call. We hadn’t talked in weeks, and she was trying to catch up. On me, on her grandkids, all of whom she worries about, because it hasn’t been easy for us in the last few years. She was saying how positive I sounded, and I appreciated it. I didn’t want to abruptly hang up on her, and I was already at my daughter’s friend’s house, so I decided rather than hang up on my mom, I’d just park for a minute or two and finish the conversation so I wouldn’t be rude. I had the windows up. I will admit, I had her on Bluetooth, but when I pulled up the street to park, there was no one there.
That’s where you come in. You walked up to my car and asked me to roll my window down. I thought it was odd, because that was the second time in an hour a strange man was asking me to roll my window down. I don’t expect you to understand what that feels like, because like the other guy, you are a white man, and white men are pretty much the only people in the world right now who have the luxury of safety impunity these days. But when you are a woman, and a strange man comes up to your car on foot, there is a little surge of adrenaline every time. It’s not normal. And it sets off alarm bells. Especially when it’s the second time in an hour.
Despite my better judgment, I did what you asked. And what followed is still rattling me as I write this. You asked me, in a form of passive aggression that has clearly been honed and crafted over a lifetime, if I was “going to sit there all day talking on the phone”. Because my mom was actually listening to all this, and because we were in the middle of a conversation, you caught me off guard. I had been sitting there, with no one around, for a total of five minutes. Maximum. And yet, there you were, walking up out of nowhere. I think you may recall I looked a bit stunned. Your anger and entitlement were palpable. And that very entitlement is what made Silverlake so much easier to leave behind. It is not the town I moved into years ago. You told me that you were trying to enjoy your day, and that you didn’t appreciate me parked there, on the street, twenty feet from the front of your apartment. You wanted to be able to sit on the front steps and stare at your phone. You had a weird smile on your face that had nothing to do with joy or contentment. I could see the rage on your face, the plastered-on smile that showed me that as nasty as your intention was, as entitled as you felt, as superior as you believe you are, you still want to appear in control. I don’t even know how I responded. I’m not sure I even came up with any words that made sense. But I quickly drove around the corner, and I picked up my daughter. I had to hang up the phone with my mom because the whole tone of the conversation had changed. I felt shamed, I felt embarrassed, and I had lost all the positivity I had felt when I woke up. I was yelled at by not one strange man today, but two. And for what? For waiting for an elderly couple without judgment, and for calling my mom back and taking a few extra minutes to talk to her, because, after all, she’s almost 77 and lives in New York, and you just never know if this might be the last time you talk to someone you love.
After I picked up my daughter, I saw you, sitting on the front steps of your apartment, no shoes, no one around, face buried in your phone, probably so you could make sure you haven’t lost any Instagram followers or to see how many likes you got on your last tweet. I’m sorry that my four minutes in front of your apartment talking to my mom on Bluetooth a little more loudly than you cared for, ruined four of your God knows how many minutes of personal time you spend in front of your apartment. But I thought you should know that you were mean to someone today. Someone you don’t know. Someone whose journey you don’t know, whose struggles are real, who was in a great mood, despite a horrific week of bad news and bad luck. And what you did ruined that. You shamed me, because I was bugging you. And I’m guessing that’s not even close to the first time. You seemed pretty skilled at it.
You have a choice in life to spread kindness or shit. You, and the other man who yelled at me today, spread some stinky shit. And since I’ve clearly lived longer than you, I can tell you from experience that if you spread shit around, it will, without a doubt, come back and hit you smack in the face. I speak from experience. And I’ve learned from that experience. Which is why, when I came back around and passed you, I told you to have a great day. Remember, you may always be a white man, but you won’t always be young, and you might face a time in your life when you have to fight with everything you have to stay grateful, to stay hopeful. And when that time comes, I sincerely hope no one does to you what you did to me today.