The Importance of Good Manners and Good Judgment

My buddy Jim was out on Halloween (on crutches following knee reconstruction) walking his kids around his neighborhood. Many kids were out on the street and the parents walked along with them. Suddenly, Billy Bob Half-wit and his wife Bobby-Sue come blazing down the street in their loud and smoky pick-up truck. Parents rush to gather their kids away from the curb and shout at the truck to slow down.

Billy Bob leans over toward the passenger window to look straight at Jim and shout “F*&# You!”

Jim Shouts back “ Noooooo, F*&# You!”

Billy Bob stops the truck, jumps out and beelines around the front of truck straight at Jim. As he rolls within range, He realizes just about the time that he gets into shoving range that Jim isn’t going to wait to be shoved. The pre-emptive strike is already on its way. He’s already trying to shift into reverse about the time that Jim's gnarled and scarred fist lands square on his face. This gave Billy Bob a boost in reverse like a jet launching from a carrier deck. He landed square on his back.

Meanwhile, Bobby-Sue jumped out of her door and jumped on to Jim’s back while Billy-Bob tried to get back in the game. Jim, Bobby-Sue and crutches staggered backward into a fire hydrant (undoing his knee reconstruction) and dumping her on the ground.

When Billy-Bob gets back into the scuffle, the severely handicapped Jim continues to give Billy-Bob reasons to rethink his self-image as a bad-ass.

When Billy-Bob was finished learning what he needed to learn. He and Bobby-Sue jumped back in the truck and drove away.

Jim now has to go get his knee rebuilt. How well it heals remains to be seen. Billy-Bob will probably never be the same. He just got his ass kicked in front of his wife and kids. He will never forget it. Except maybe when he’s drunk. Bobby-Sue will never forget it either. She married him because she was drawn to the alpha-male that showed all the strength and bluster. The kids saw their dad get his ass kicked. I expect it will be a life-shaping event like that scene from “Back to the Future”

My bet is that Billy-Bob will have better manners in the future. He has learned that not everyone will tolerate rudeness. He will play it over and over in his head and wish he had a knife or a baseball bat… something to shift the balance.

Billy-Bob’s only chance would have been to jump out of the vehicle with a sawed-off shotgun and empty both barrels from the far side of the truck. If he got Jim on the first blast, he might have had a chance to be a hero to his kids, but they’d have to see him during prison visiting hours.

What Billy-Bob doesn’t know is that Jim couldn’t have been beaten. Jim was fully prepared to escalate. Billy-Bob might have jumped out of the vehicle with a baseball bat or a knife but Jim had a Browning Hi-Power 9mm tucked in a paddle holster.

Early in the history of this country- someone said: An armed society is a polite society.