Don’t sass me!

I gave the guy a wide berth. He was big. He had tattooed, muscles rippling out of his shirt and he looked tired and unhappy. I saw him when I was walking to my airport terminal and somehow lost him. I noticed him again later when I went to sit down to wait for my plane.

He sat a row behind me and, if was possible, was even more upset. He was on the phone and you could tell he was losing an argument. I half expected to see smoke coming out from underneath his Carhartt knitted hat. A few other passengers couldn’t help but notice the conversation too and seemed like me to secretly wish the guy would get up and move away, but nobody was going to say anything to him face-to-face. Nobody wanted to take their life in their hands. You could hear in the tone of his voice that he was getting angrier about the call, like he was reaching a breaking point, but then I heard the magic words: “Okay, okay, baby, you win, whatever you want baby.”

When you’re going through hell

Some people are naturally mean as hell. Some people are pussycats. We’re all different, but I’ve noticed over the years: We all have loved ones or higher ups we want and need to make happy. It could be a boss, someone who outranks you in the military, a sibling, a mother, or a significant other, it doesn’t matter. We want to make him or her happy.

In his case, “baby, baby, baby” was ruling the day. In my head, I imaged the guy’s wife, girlfriend, or significant other, legs tucked underneath her on the couch, a small little dog cozied up next to her, while she gave our guy the business for disagreeing with her.

“Don’t sass me Johnny!”

“No baby! I’m not sassing you.”

“Oh, I hear it in your voice, you’re sassing me. You think just because you’re flying off whenever and wherever you want, you can start to sass me. I’ll show you Mr. Big Shot. I’ll show you who can sass who!”

The bugle call of retreat!

And our guy sitting in the middle of the airport, stuck in a no-win situation, wishing desperately for the airline to start boarding so that he could get off the phone, was left with only one clear course of action: Throwing in the towel and waving the white flag of surrender!

“Yes, yes, I’ll let it go baby, you win, whatever you want, I trust your opinion. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to get you upset. I’ll make it up to you tonight. I promise you.”

Yes, yes, sometimes even the tough guys fall hard.