Bitch

Shortly before Christmas, I was driving home from work in my little Toyota Matrix, the sun slanting through the back windshield, which definitely needed to be washed. Then I saw it: someone had written the word "Bitch" in the  dust on my windshield.

I was stunned. Why would anyone write such a thing on my car? Where was the car when it was written? In a store parking lot? In the garage at work? In my own damn driveway?

Driving along, my obsessiveness goes into hyper-drive. Who dislikes me enough to do such a thing? Being a bitch, to me, is someone's way of saying I have infringed upon someone's happiness; I have asserted myself over them; I have somehow made them feel miserable; I have rained on someone's parade.

So I do a quick  inventory, and here is the thing: Apart from my position as the Mom in my own family, I have made a career out of not being in charge of anyone. I have no power to assert. I can, sometimes, be abrupt or demanding insofar as I need something to do my job--so I guess maybe someone doesn't like my attitude? But frankly, the people that are most likely to see this side of me are the ones I work with, and writing "Bitch" on someone's car window in the garage of a family attraction that's under 24-hour surveillance seems a little risky. Seems like a stretch.

So I think about more random interactions--could it have been someone I did business with in a store? But I have a well-developed reflex of being extra nice to anyone who works in a store of any kind. I can't think of a single negative interaction.


Could it be my driving? This is possible, as I am well-known for driving the speed limit like a little old lady. And some people really seem to hate it when I follow the rules. (Cars give everyone a suit of armor and turn many simple traffic interactions into fierce jousting matches.) Or could it be my parking? I'll admit, I park in some tight spaces just because I can--my car is little. Maybe someone was thinking that by parking their SUV at a 45-degree-angle across two spaces meant that no one would be able to park next to them, and when I dared to do it, it made them mad?

Finally, I conclude that any of these reasons for writing "Bitch" on my car leads to me write off the writer. I have tried, but I cannot take this seriously--except for the part where it's cowardly and just plain mean. And that tells me far more about the writer than anything else he or she was trying to say.

Don't. be. mean.