So, what do you do with the mean people?

You know, the ones you really didn’t intend to have a conversation with, bench or otherwise? But for some reason there one is, right in front of you. A real snake.

A stranger who could not get the door to open and laughingly I showed her how.

Big mistake. My mistake. My attitude, she says, going on to point out all the other gaping holes in my inadequate personality, punctuating each word with venom.

An invitation to fight if there ever was one!

What’s a derby girl to do? Defend? Fight back? She wasn’t very big. I probably could have won. But despite outside appearances, derby girls are smart, not mean.

And they play offense and defense at the same time.

“You know, ” I finally say after a few feeble defenses. “You may be right. I apologize.”

As we walk away my nine year old companion states firmly, “You didn’t have to say that. She started it!” (This coming from the girl who sat in the principal’s office for hitting back at a bully.)

“But I won,” I tell her. “I gave her a way to back down and it just made her look mean and dumb.”

Because sometimes being right may be the wrong thing to be. Or just not worth it.

And, as I heard growing up, you don’t get into a spitting match with a snake.

SKATE ON!

Darla

(Don’t know where this bench is located, and not sure I would sit on it, but thanks to photographer Wieslaw Jarek )