I still can't believe this actually happened.

[kellinator]

I had a bit of an Incident this weekend.

Michael and I decided to go to RuSan's yesterday evening. We were seated at the booth next to three of the loudest, rudest, most pathetic examples of the Frat Boy Stereotype I have ever had the misfortune of encountering, and I went to Vanderbilt so you know that's saying something.

These three were obviously on their way to a truly memorable drinking binge. I'm sure lots of those start at Ru San's. On Friday nights. When the sushi chefs are doing shots of sake with everyone in sight. Not Sunday afternoons when people are there with their kids.

These asshats were slamming their shot glasses on the table to assert their masculinity (and shake our table in the process), earning them the glares of people halfway across the restaurant. They thought it was fun to make fun of their server's accent. They wanted their friends to join them, to the tune of picking up their cell phones and screaming "GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!!" into them five times in a row. They were quite comfortable in their control of the whole restaurant, including one's God-given right to throw his arms around and poke me in the back any time he felt like it.

They decided their sake bombs were too expensive for the amount of booze they got and demanded to speak to the manager, who sounded very irritated but agreed to give them two dollars off, probably in hopes that they would shut up. As soon as she left, they called her a bitch. They then started complaining about all the weird cartoons.

I had had enough.

Originally I had just planned to content myself with a snarky "congratulations on your graduation from kindergarten" remark on our way out, but my meal was being ruined, and I had a feeling that was nothing compared to the way the evenings of the servers and manager were being ruined. So I wheeled around and asked, if these cartoons were so weird and Japanese people are so strange, then why did you come to RuSan's?

I don't remember everything I said, but I read them the riot act, including the graduation from kindergarten line. I informed them that if they were going to yell, scream and generally behave like Neanderthals, they needed to go back to the frat house. I attempted to avoid profanity, but in the end I told them they were assholes.

It very quickly became clear that since I had had the temerity to say what everyone was thinking but was too pussy to say, we were going to be harrassed for the rest of the meal. I requested our waiter move us, which he did. He very apologetically asked us to let him know if there were any more problems.

The ringleader of the assholes picked that very moment to loudly call me a bitch. I informed the waiter of this.

The staff demanded that the table either apologize to me or leave immediately. They left.

It took a few minutes for my adrenaline to settle down. Michael wasn't thrilled over having to move tables, but told me he was proud of me.

You know these people. They show up all over the place. For whatever reason, they think they own everything they see, and they sincerely believe they are the only people who matter. They make life unpleasant for the people who aren't assholes, but since the people who aren't assholes are trying to be nice and dignified folk who take the high road, they get away with it.

I'm not nice.

Some of you will probably think I overreacted. Part of me wonders if I did overreact. But a much bigger part of me knows that I put up with a lot of shit, and I'll be damned if I, or any of my people, am going to put up with any more shit than I have to because I was too "nice" to say anything about it. And if that makes me a bitch, well, there are worse things than being a bitch.

And I'm proud of myself. Three years ago I never would have been able to do that.

And as for those asshats -- boys, the term "bitch" loses a lot of its power when your friends use the term with affection.

Comments

[reannon.livejournal.com]

What you didn't realize is that every other patron in the restaurant was silently thinking, "Thank God, someone's going to shut up those assholes," and thanking you in their hearts for doing what they were too timid to do.

A+++++++

[amai-unmei.livejournal.com]

You didn't overreact!

Now, how big should I make this shrine to your badassed-ness? I'm thinking it's gotta be to scale, so New-York-City-sized it is!

[stevietee.livejournal.com]

*high five*

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

You are my hero.

[thedivinemrsm.livejournal.com]

bitch, you rock! i'm proud of you!

[dwivian]

Do I think you over-reacted?

Hm.... well, as I see no felony charges pending, I'm thinking they got off easily.

I am INCREDIBLY happy with this story, except for the lack of felony actions on your part. Maybe I'm jaded.....

(( good show! ))

[zorathenne.livejournal.com]

"They were quite comfortable in their control of the whole restaurant, including one's God-given right to throw his arms around and poke me in the back any time he felt like it."

Not only would I have also ripped them a new one, I probably would have broken that assholes fingers as well. Maybe it was best for them it had been you there instead of me.

The last time someone called me a [black] bitch, even though I silently thanked him for the compliment, I informed him that as I look nothing like his mother, I couldn't see how he could ever mistake me for her and to call out her 'name' somewhere else if he was trying to look for her and get her attention.

So no, you didn't overreact at all. You were just much more nicer to them about it than I would have been.

I don't think I've ever been prouder to be 'Snark's Bitch' *grinnibble*.

[missrachael.livejournal.com]

Good for you. St. S and I have actually stopped going to Ru San altogether because of the sake bomb assholes.

[tfcocs.livejournal.com]

Bravo! You did the right thing. I hope that the manager reduced your bill for your trouble. After all, you weer basically doing his/her job for him/her!

[poprockgrrl.livejournal.com]

If more people spoke their minds, maybe asshats like that would shut the hell up and not ruin everyone's time. Yay for you! :)

[twisteddaydream.livejournal.com]

Hell no you didn't overreact! It rocks that you stood up to them, even more so since you recoginized it was something you could do now that you could not do in the past. Asshats like that deserve a good stabbing. Or perhaps just a good dose of chlorine in their gene pool to insure that they do not spawn.

[blondeheroine.livejournal.com]

As a girl who once did the same thing in, of all God forsaken places, Chick-Fil-A, I am uber-proud of your Tawanda moment.

[ilexx.livejournal.com]

OMG I LOVE YOU.

and bitch puh-leez. "overreacting"??? don't you DARE even CONSIDER the possibility. you are a fucking GODDESS.

[jerel.livejournal.com]

You two were trying to enjoy a nice evening out and these bastards were ruining it. And I'm sure there were 50 other people in that restaurant (staff included) who were trying to relax or, in the case of the staff, just earn a living. They didn't deserve nice. It's not like their conversation was a bit loud; they went out of their way to be rude and obnoxious. Hell, I wouldn't have waited as long as you did. :)

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

You didn't overreact. I was about three seconds away from a similar explosion when I was having a late dinner with grunion last week. A family was letting their kids run around the place, screaming. Right before I exploded, they got up and left, thereby saving themselves MUCH grief.

Overreacting? Hell, I'm PROUD of you.

cheers,
Phil

[chicating.livejournal.com]

It's what Kay Howard would do. Except you don't have cuffs...um, to my knowledge.

[leopard-print.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty proud of you, actually :)


Although I gotta admit, I cracked up when I read this:

and I went to Vanderbilt so you know that's saying something.

I'm sorry, after UF and FSU, I just don't think of Vanderbilt as being a party-party-fratboy-type institution.

[dragonbride.livejournal.com]

I admire that.
I would have probably got madder or decided to leave.

It's funny how men who speak their minds are often called "sonofabitch" with admiration, but let a with balls speak up and she becomes a "bitch."

You keep being a bitch.

[lunza.livejournal.com]

Good for you.

[dlainef.livejournal.com]

You rock! I need you to come stand behind the counter with me on check out mornings when people are being assholes. I get fired if I say something to people like that. And oh I would so love to be a bitch!

[alison-says.livejournal.com]

That rules! Go you!! I love it when someone reads the loud asshole the riot act :)

[misanthropist.livejournal.com]

Good for you.

[the-missy.livejournal.com]

*APPLAUSE!*

Good for you. We all need to stand up to these self-assigned Centers of the Universe.