"Caring for children is totally unmanly!"
"You stupid wimp, you're not a man." Half-hearted that the stroller mumbled in my shoulder when I drove past him with my children in the transport bicycle. The prototype of a bitter old man, completely in the uniform of a dark blue winter jacket and captain's hat, could not help but let out the pig in passing. Exactly so that I had to hear it, but too softly to provoke a scene on the street.
This is bad for him now, scenes on the street are my specialty, if someone wants to attack me. Squealing, I brake and call after him: "Hey, have you a problem this morning?". The old man hesitates and thinks about pretending that he has ignored me. But then he drives around, willing to pull it off hard.
"Good Morning!" I say gently as he comes back. "Was that her big plan today?" I get up, drink my coffee, and then I moble strangers on the street? " He pinches his eyes grimly - presumably I've correctly summed up his morning routine.
"Men do not do it, it's work for women, be ashamed!"
Then, in a theatrical gesture, he points accusingly at my children and angrily exclaims, "THAT! No men do it! That's work for women! Be ashamed!"
A sensational attack. I should be angry, but I can not help but laugh spontaneously. Too much his face reminds me of the stunned anger of my two children when I opened them one day, they were old enough now to wipe their butts themselves ("Dad, this can not be my job!").
"Oh, come here," I wave closer to him and open the tarpaulin of my transport bike so that he can see the children. Nobody, according to my inner logic, behaves so unabashedly when a charming toddler looks him in the eye critically. Suspicious, he comes closer, looks at the two and says disparaging: "They are not even of you, or? You sissy?"
"Children?" I say, revealing my new acquaintance. He's a grown man with many, many years of life experience, and yet he's become a complete idiot, no one is safe from that, take good care that does not happen to you. "
Suddenly, my mob friend is sorry for me
Okay, the de-escalation did not work that well, I'm working on it. Now my mob friend has exactly what he wanted: a confrontation. Probably the highlight of his day.
I look at him again, as he stands in front of me snorting and again "You're not a real man!" hisses. He may be in his late seventies, a good deal shorter than me. In his face, I see grim furrows around the corners of his mouth, but not a single laugh.
I try to imagine what he would look like, laughing with his best friends, playing with grandchildren who affectionately call him "Grandpa", but my imagination is not enough. And suddenly he is so sorry for me. That's probably his only contact with other people: insulting, mobbing and then arguing furiously with other people. A kind of Senior Club Fight Club to keep you alive for a few minutes.
"You soft-ridden pig!"
"Your life must be very sad," I say, as I climb back onto my bike. "I hope you have a really good day today." And I'm serious, so condescending that probably sounds to him. The man is flushed in the face and gasps.
"You soft-ridden pig!" I hear him softer behind me. And then the last insult, the worst thing you can do in your world to another person's head:
"You ... you're one of those 'nice men' too, one who is so 'really nice'!"
"It would be nice," I think while driving away. As much as I would like to pat on my shoulder for the daily transport of children: That's not very nice of me, but simply a job that millions of parents do every morning - mothers and fathers. And to shirk joint responsibility and not to go along with it - that would be completely unmanageable.
