Quick Note to the Girl Who Broke the Glass and Left it On the Sidewalk

Ok. So this is another wee bit of a rant. It's not a super crazy rant... it's pretty gentle as far as rants go. But I do realize it's a rant. Just so you know, I know. I know that it's a rant. I know.

Ok.

As I was walking home today I saw a woman take a glass thing-a-majig and break it into a garbage can leaving 60 billion shards of glass all over the sidewalk.

She looked like a nice enough girl. She clearly worked at a retail store that sold expensive furniture whatnots, she was wearing a nice, put together outfit, her hair was all done up nice... she was normal in every way and it seemed to me that she wasn't TRYING to be a jackass.

This was my thought process:

Hu. Breaking glass into that garbage can probably isn't a great idea.

Yup, officially not a good idea. There is now glass all over the ground.

She must not realize that the bottom of the garbage can isn't closed in and that the razor sharp chunks of glass are now falling onto the ground just waiting for puppy feet and baby hands and other horrible mental images that a person probably doesn't ever need ever.

I SWEAR TO GOD I figured she must not have realized what she had done. I mean, what kind of jackass knowingly breaks glass all over the ground and leaves it there?

So, when I got closer I turned and pointed to the glass saying:

"Excuse me, but there is some glass there on the ground..."

At which point she gave me Snarky Face and said:

"Yeah. I'll be sure to clean that right up. Yeah. Thanks."

Hmmm... I have the sneaking suspicion that she was being sarcastic there. I can tell you with complete and utter honesty that I was not being rude when I spoke to her! At all! Honest! Rude would have sounded something like this:

(Imaginary Rude Me) Hey, moron! If your mother saw what you just did, HOW MUCH TROUBLE WOULD YOU BE IN? What do you do in your spare time, take candy from children? And pull the heads off their GI Joe dolls? AND KICK PUPPIES?!! You get over here RIGHT NOW, pick up this glass and then GO TO YOUR ROOM YOUNG LADY!!!

That would have been scary, (imaginary) rude me, but I did not do that at all, I was very polite and, call me naive, quite shocked by her reaction. Now that I've had time to think of it, it wasn't the glass that ticked me off as much as her reaction did.

I totally realize that we all make mistakes. I do all kinds of stupid stuff ALL THE TIME. Just two days ago I left the house with John's keys IN ADDITION TO MY OWN SET OF KEYS and John realized it just as he was trying to leave the house to head out to the first of 3 meetings but he couldn't because I HAD HIS KEYS. So I got three frantic messages, all of which I missed because I was away from my phone (of course) so I couldn't even tell him OH MY GOD I HAVE YOUR KEYS I AM SUCH A DOLT so he could give up turning the house upside down and come up with an Alternate Plan. Whoops. A. Daisy. Jackass move on my part. Everyone does dumb stuff, it's just important to smack yourself in the head, or make the "Holy crap, did I just do that?!!" face or buy an ice cream cake to apologize (I just saw a commercial for ice cream cake. Mmmmm).

Since I'm trying to be more zen, I've decided that rather than stew in Anger and the Unfairness of it All, something else probably happened: I'll bet she was having One Of Those Moments (you know, one of THOSE moments). She did something not so hot, she knew it and then I went and called her on it. Maybe she got snarky because she felt bad or even a bit embarrassed. Maybe if I had left her alone she would have thought about the pesky glass and cleaned it up herself.

I keep on thinking of a whole bunch of dumb things I've done. The urge to share is getting hard to resist...

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