Shock & Awe

There was a Shock today, but the awe was really much more of an "Awww - you have got to be f****** kidding me".

I go to work quite early.  The bus comes at 6:30 and I change buses in the city centre and get into work for just after 7.  I do not, engage in conversation, I do not yammer at anyone on my phone, I don't even use my mobile to read anything.  I just want to get to work.

I had a bad feeling when 2 blokes got on at the next bus stop.  They were loud and I suspect off their heads on something.  They took seats at the back of the bus - where the type of people who like to be loud on buses tend to congregate.  I sat at the front and did my best to screen out the world but I was aware of them talking Scheiß - loudly - at the back of the bus.  But the journey was otherwise unremarkable. 

My stop came up and I go off the bus.  And guess who followed me off the bus?

Yes  Die Brüder Arschloch.  The bigger of the 2 - taller than me incidentally - immediately stuck his face in mine and as he asked me: why I thought I was something special?  and regaled me with what he thought about people like me, he reinforced his narrative by punching me continually on the chest.

I, of course, stayed as calm as I could.  Arschlöcher like him are looking for a reason to start fighting and I had no interest in providing him with an opponent.  And so I asked him very politely to go away.  

This did not work.

The other people at the bus stop helped by immediately becoming deaf and blind.

And so I deployed my secret weapon.  And I make no apology for telling him to, and here I quote, "Fuck right off" although it was perhaps a little louder than I typed it here.  The foreign words had an effect - I think it snapped him out of his bubble - and he turned and left with his mate, still babbling Scheiß but going in the other direction.

And this all happened at 6:45 in the morning.

However.  That was not the end. Perhaps for him it was, but my day was a disaster.  I couldn't concentrate on anything.  That fight-or-flight reaction is always horrible for me.  Adrenalin doesn't thrill me, it feels like a poison.  A couple of hours later I found myself simultaneously shaking and feeling furious.

I explained to my colleagues what had happened - and that was really difficult - trying to keep it together to just tell the story.

What's really horrible is that the feeling of security that I had living here is gone.  I really felt that Wiesbaden was a great and safe place.  One Arschloch changed that.  That makes me furious.

I will calm down.  Not just yet.  And I will get on the same bus tomorrow.