Painful Corrections

Where do you draw your line?

License from Getty images on Unsplash +

Scene 1

Cyclists Dismount - Walk Your Bike

I saw the sign and decided to ignore it. I was running behind for a physiotherapy appointment and was cycling to get there. Biking is often faster in my town than using a car, but my usual route had a barricade at the second half of the block due to roadwork.

Rather than turn around and backtrack, I headed for the sidewalk that was still open to pedestrians. That’s where the dismount sign for cyclists was posted on the worksite board.

A quick glance down the sidewalk confirmed that nobody was coming, so I hopped the curb and started riding past the construction zone on the half of the sidewalk that wasn’t encroached by the temporary fencing.

Just one pedal stroke later, however, I saw a woman coming in the opposite direction. She also had a bike, and was walking obediently beside it. I choose to stay on my wheels, moving in a slow, deliberate and balanced manner.

But when the short Brunette with the bright red helmet and a saddle bag that had celery sticking out of it met me in the middle, she read me the riot act.

“Didn’t you see the sign!” she said with exasperation.

I was taken aback, surprised at the vehemence of her reprimand.

“Um, yeah, I saw it.”

“Well why do you have to do that? You’re breaking the rules.”

“Uh, yes, you’re right. I am,” I admitted.

She left me with a withering accusatory glare as we passed each other on the narrow walk and then went our separate ways.

Scene 2

I was looking around the room while waiting for my physiotherapist to come in, but there was little visual stimulation. The Zen decor of gray walls, bare counter, a single ergonomic stool, and one blue massage table provided little distraction. Maybe that was the point. I reviewed the issues I wanted to discuss with my therapist.

“I’ve been getting tingling in my arms and hands when cycling and working at my computer lately,” I reported, “and I’m wondering what’s going on.”

He briefly explained that there are nerves branching off the top of the spine that can be affected by tension in the upper back.

“Lie down on your stomach,” he said.

He applied gentle pressure at first, but within a minute or two he was doing deep tissue work that hurt like a mutha fu**er.

I was taking deliberate shuddering breaths and making audible sounds of distress to stay with it as he explained that my upper back was like working on a slab of concrete, and he was breaking it up. Between labored inhales I considered the amount of strength that would be required on his part to restore suppleness to my back. I was just one person, and yet he was doing this all day long.

Since I didn’t know any better, there was nothing stopping him from giving me a pleasant rub and sending me away feeling light and happy. Instead, he applied a correction that he knew was going to make me very uncomfortable, but in the long run, would benefit my health.

Leaving the appointment on my bike, there was no tingling in my hands.

Scene 3

I was sitting in the middle seat on a long flight from Vancouver to Dallas. We were half way through the trip and I was trying to work, but having difficulty focusing. Across the aisle, in the mirroring middle seat, a man had his laptop open, his earbuds in, and had started watching a movie.

He thought the sound was coming through his ear pods. In reality, the Viking period melodrama—which was basically alternating between battle scenes and sex scenes—was broadcasting a non-stop stream of groans, gasps, and heavy breathing in both scenarios. The rest of his fellow passengers could hear it because it was coming straight out of his laptop speakers and not through his ear pieces at all.

I kept glancing over at the two people sitting on either side of him, wondering why in the world they weren’t saying anything. A quick scan confirmed I wasn’t the only one thinking something should be said.

But his seat mates ignored the issue, working away on their laptops, and nobody, including me, took it upon themselves to let the gentleman know we were one and all listening to the symphony of Viking purpose and passion for the remainder of the flight.

Scene 4

I was still a new parent. My three and five year old were behind me in the car, squabbling about who had first invaded the backseat territory of the other.

Suddenly, my attention was pulled away from the rearview mirror back to the road as the driver directly in front of me bore down on their horn. There was no preceding tap or honk—just a sustained, full leaning blare that sent a wail of sound out into the dusk hour light.

I looked down the road, trying to see what the driver was honking at.

No cars were visible ahead, nor were any vehicles attempting to enter the street from a side road or driveway.

Strange.

But a few seconds later I saw the target of the driver’s wrath.

An elderly man was crossing the road across from the adjacent grocery store with two items in his arms. A large bag of groceries, and a toddler.

The child was wide-eyed with alarm as the SUV approached and the grandfather figure hastened to scramble across the street. There was ample time for him to cross without impacting the driver, but this motorist evidently needed a reason to unload a blast of frustration onto someone, and in this case, it was a completely undeserving recipient.

I’ve rarely offered corrections or feedback to strangers in my life, but in this instance, I instinctually fell in behind the car with the intention, at the first available opportunity, of letting this person know they had crossed a line.

The fantasy I had of hopping out at the next red light and delivering my criticism was dashed, however, when the light turned green as we approached the first intersection. We coasted through and I was suddenly met with the reality of stalking an unknown driver in a rage of my own.

I took a breath and assessed.

“Should I let this go?”

I couldn’t. Something had to be said. Oddly, every intersection supplied us with green lights as we passed through them, the original scene of the incident now far behind us. Multiple left and right hand turns were made and numerous neighborhoods were passed as we navigated across town.

“Where are we going?” my five-year-old asked, sensing that his father was literally, and perhaps in character, headed for a place he didn’t recognize.

I didn’t answer, but kept tailing the red compact SUV, sure that the driver was well aware they were being closely followed by now.

The car finally pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store. I braked into a set of stalls a row away to put some distance between the conversation I was about to have and my kids, just in case it didn’t go well.

I got out, approached the driver’s door, and there behind the wheel was a middle-aged woman in a wool coat with haggard circles and dark blue veins around her tired eyes, clutching her purse and looking sideways at me as though expecting I was about to pull a gun and demand she hand over her valuables.

She made no move to respond to my presence, so I brought my knuckles to her window and lightly rapped on the glass. Perhaps she could tell I wasn’t, in fact, a vigilante, and so she lowered the pane just enough for an exchange.

“The way you laid into your horn at the man who was crossing the street with a little kid was absolutely inappropriate, insensitive, and wrong,” I blurted, my voice fueled by adrenaline and now fear in the face of an actual confrontation.

It was then I noticed she was also shaking.

“I saw you following me,” she snapped, “and it terrified me. You have no business . . . a man . . . following a woman . . . in a car at night.”

For the first time I felt a touch of pity for her, the fear, frailty, and rancor that had obviously been following her around long before I fell in behind her bumper.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” I said with slight de-escalation of my tone, “but what you did was unnecessary, and mean, and you needed to hear it.”

I turned around, got back in my car, and drove my kids home—debating the whole way whether I’d done the right thing.

None of us transcend the need for correction. And correction is painful.

When should we provide it? And how should we receive it?

Where have you drawn a line, or crossed one?

Tell us your story.