Not because I finished watching it feeling the urge to pay it forward, but the movie managed to send out the opposite message. If you do something good, something bad will happen.
A rather pessimistic look on things. I would love to believe that for every good action there is an equal good reaction. That does not always seem to be the case.
One of my many pet peeves, and I honestly do not have that many, is people who litter. In my naive teen years I was known to clean my car out on a highway or two, until a sad Indian with a single tear drop changed all that.
If my daughter sees someone litter she will stop and pick it up and put it in our car until we get home.
Tonight I should have done that.
I have noticed a change in me, I seem to be becoming less filtered with my ideas and opinions. Some have said this is the beginning of menopause where we just don't give a shit anymore about keeping up with appearances. Maybe this is true. I may just be turning into Tawanda from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. Minus the insurance.
While in search of my diet coke I pulled up to a McDonalds. I noticed the car in front of me roll down their window and throw a cup out on to the grass.
I got out of my car and picked the cup up.
Not being able to leave well enough alone I walked over to his car, noted the small children in the car and with as much sugar in my voice as I could muster I handed him the cup and said, "Here, I think you dropped this."
He took the cup and said, "Thanks."
When I got back in my car I was feeling pretty good about myself. Until I saw the man ceremoniously dump three half full slurpees out of his window and on to the ground while giving me the finger. I pulled up to get my own diet coke and asked the girl, "Did you just see that? There is a trash can five feet away and he has children in his car!"
She blew it off and said, "He's and asshole".
I concurred and drove around the corner.
I wish I could say my story ended there. I am not happy with myself for what followed and even writing this shames me.
The man was waiting for me. He had my car blocked and he began to dump every piece of trash in his car out of his window.
I honked and gave him the finger. My window was down, as was his, and he yelled, "Why don't you clean it up?"
I screamed, yes screamed, "This is what you are teaching your children? Great exapmple!"
His retort was, "So clean up after me you white bitch."
Now I really wish that is where the story ends. I really wish I had gotten out of the car and cleaned up after him. What had I started ?
Where was my path of least resistance when I needed it the most? Where was my zen? Where was my brain?
My brain went immediately into racist mode and I screamed back at him, "Why don't you go the fuck back to Mexico."
Yes. I did. I said that. No, I yelled that. In a parking lot. His children probably heard.
Where did that even come from? I am not racist. Or so I thought. Was my mind just looking for the first insult it could muster? And if so, why a racist one?
Everything I did was wrong. If I could go back I would have picked up his trash and put it in my car and been silently pissed off at the stranger who littered. At that point I did not see him as a "Mexican Who Litters" I just saw him as a Litterer.
Instead of my original good intention to pay it forward, I left a parking lot filled with more trash, literal and verbal. Feeling not at all good about myself.
Pay it forward? I think not. All I did was cause harm, mostly to my own psyche as I sit here now and question my knee jerk reaction. Emphasis on jerk.
When I was a child there was an elderly lady who sat out on her front porch in a vinyl woven lawn chair and would yell at every passing car. She would yell to slow down, or speed up, or call them names. Clearly she had lost her filter long ago.
I do not want to be that old lady. I was scared of her. She always told me I was up to no good whenever my brother and I walked past her.
maybe she was prophetic and I am up to no good.
My trying to pay it forward resulted in disaster. My own mostly.
I am ashamed.
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