Just one of the women I hate.

One of the things about growing up Nazirene is that it is a universe dominated by women. Sure, there are Nazirene men and there is the blustering of men being the Ephesianic household head.
Ha. Ha. Ha.

Women run the game. They wield their piety like a light saber and slice the man-nuggets off of their husbands and sons.

I hate women. Here's one I hate REAL BAD.

Now, I'm a person who is relatively tolerant of abuse. I am regularly the bitch of choice for most anyone who wants a patsy. People can do really big stuff to me (e.g. remove part of my small intestine with a spork) and I usually pass it off as them having a bad day. The big things roll. The little things, however, do not.

I suppose that it is one of those silly personality disorders that compels me to take disproportionate offense at an ill-chosen phrase, a subtle bump without an "excuse me", or a simple act of forgetfulness. And when the moon is full, and the bile is flowing like maple sap, I will bludgeon you.

To illustrate, here is a little morality tale that teaches us the important lesson of courtesy.

Last Friday, I was driving in a city about 2 hours away, looking for a place to do some recreational shopping. The traffic was murderous at 5:30 on a Friday, and cars were jamming like a teen garage band. Of course, I was in a relatively strange place and apparently only one of the 15 lanes could take me into the strip mall I was eyeing.

Traffic was at a dead stop and I needed over. Next to me was this older lady in a gold Buick. I gave her one of those "gosh, I'm new here" shrugs and motioned for permission to merge. I used the international hand gestures for "hey, help me out", and a nice toothy grin.

What I got in return from this bitch was the contemptuous eye-roll of a 14 year old girl as she edged her car into the rear bumper of the pick up in front of her. She slow-moed her head to look away from me, not in a "no, sorry you can't come over" way, but in a depersonalizing "you have less value than a chicken McNugget" sort of way.

God I hated her. Bad.

And I just couldn't let it pass.

By the time I finally merged, she had lurched seven or eight cars ahead of me, turning right into the mall. And I lost her. But unlike other losses - teeth, dignity, whatever - this loss was not to be permanent.

For the next 90 minutes, I snaked my way through the parking lots of 10 or 15 stores and restaurants - obsessed with confronting this malicious and condescending gorgon.

I thought I found her car in the parking lot of Lowe's. Fortunately, there was a parking space next to the sedan in question and I inched beside it. I was willing to wait. But first, a quick recon of Lowe's.

She wasn't there. Damn.

Now let's pause for a brief profile of this shrew. You have to know a dozen or more just like her. She fancied herself as upscale, more than the aged-out soccer mom that she was. Skin too tan, too many gold herringbone chains, pulsing with the hormonal fluctuations of a difficult menopause. Think Laura Bush with a mood disorder. There are only about a billion of her. And I hate every fucking one of them.

They emit their derision like sonar from a bat, bouncing it off of everyone and everything so they know where to move. Every hair of her expired Dorothy Hammill blow dry was an argument for misogyny. I milked every drop of reflected hostility I could and distilled it into a visceral liquor of loathing.

Needless to say, I kept looking. And then in Target, it happened.

There in the toy aisle with her daughter and grandkids was my phantom detractor.

I pushed my empty cart up behind her. "Lady, you have a manners problem," I hissed.

She looked puzzled, and then thinking that she had stepped in front of me or some such slight, she moved out of the way.

And I let it rip. I disgorged my indictment of her, and she was unrepentant. Her daughter, a predictable junior version of the she-devil, stepped to her aid, confused but able to muster her sorceress genes on a whim.

Not gonna work, muffin. Now it's time to greet the children.

"Your grandma is a bitch," I admonished the pair. I'll call them Caitlin and Cody, although they could have been any variant of Ashley, Dakota, Brittany, or Dylan. $50 says one of them has ADHD.

I was done and rolled the empty cart toward the door. Hag daughter had to have the last word about the quality of my example for children.

A gentle "shut the fuck up" closed the goings-on, and I left, obsession squandered, to be a nice guy until the next one.