There’s something in me that’s started quietly fighting back about things. Not things at home, because genuinely things are balanced and fair at home, but things outside of these walls. It’s not a big fight, I’m not waging war against injustice (although there are wafts of that, too) but previously where I’d just tuck tail and avoid, now I speak up.

I noticed it a few weeks ago – while driving through our small lanes a woman in a brand new, shiny, scary big Land Rover came right at me, driving at speeds that the Driver’s Ed dork in me thought were excessive. The fact that she was in a Land Rover (which is one of my pet peeves, mostly because almost no one who drives a Land Rover will ever once take it off road. If you have such a vehicle and do not: 1) live on a farm, 2) work on a farm, 3) work in the Highlands, 4) caretake National Parks or 5) herd zebras, then you shouldn’t have a Land Rover. Full stop.) was bad enough, but her speeding pissed me off more. Even further, she wouldn’t move over, presumably because she thought her big steel Land Rover could take out my car (and she wasn’t wrong). I nearly wound up in the ditch while she smugly screamed past me.

Last week I encountered her again, only this time I was prepared, egged on not only for my intense hatred of people who drive 4x4s and don’t need them, but by the fact that last week Alastair was rear-ended in our car, meaning we have to get our car fixed, have lost our no-claims bonus over here (even though the accident wasn’t our fault, we’re obligated to report it to our insurance company) and our insurance has gone up £200 (just what we need). I was pissed, and the Land Rover bitch wasn’t going to get this one.

She came at me, roaring at speeds much higher than sign-posted. She was in the middle of the road, and waved her hand to the side, indicating that I should pull my car over into a neighbor’s driveway so that she could carry on. What she failed to consider was:

1) the road is big enough for two cars, as long as one of them isn’t being a selfish asshole and driving down the middle of the road
2) my neighbors were getting in their car, getting ready to exit their drive.
3) laboring under an intense hatred of that woman and her fucking Land Rover, a hatred which had been marinating since she nearly ran me off the road two weeks prior to that, and my loathing now had the ripe consistency of battery acid.

I basically stopped my car in my lane, smiling, and gritted my teeth. “You can go ahead and hit me,” I muttered under my breath like some kind of automobile Rambo. “I’m not moving for you.”

She gestured frantically for me to move, and instead wound up caving and driving in her lane only (otherwise known as driving as one should). I drove on, and am genuinely looking forward to meeting up with her again because my hatred hasn’t begun to subside yet.

It felt brilliant, even if mildly dangerous – believe it or not, I find English drivers more aggressive than any other drivers I’ve ever encountered (and I learned to drive in Texas, where many of them are armed). The British population may have a mild-mannered reputation but I swear to god, I’ve had a few encounters with other drivers which I genuinely spent mapping out the distance to the nearest police station in order to get out of.

I had another event about three weeks ago. I had a morning of extreme IBS suffering as I uncomfortably sat on a train into London. I’ve since learned a little trick, which for those of you with IBS I can’t recommend this highly enough – every morning I make my first drink of the day a glass of water with a whole lemon squeezed into it. It tastes absolutely revolting. I’ve not suffered from IBS at all in the three weeks since I started doing this.

I digress. The train. Right. I was on it. It was a packed morning train and I’d gotten a seat in the very last car of the train, but the last set of doors. We made our way into London, me so bloated and uncomfortable it looked like I was a few months away from squeezing a newborn out. I knew that what would help would be to expel a wee bit of gas, I also knew that 1) I couldn’t do it and 2) Even if I could, I was on a packed train which would not approve of that kind of activity.

We made our way into London and as per usual the commuters all popped out of their chairs and made for the doors well before we got to the station. I was left down my end of the train with just one other guy, as everyone else made for the front of the train for that 0.46 seconds they’d gain by being one door closer to the exit. I was struggling to put my jacket on and once I had, my poppy came apart. My EDS has been horrific lately, to the point that there I was using two ham fists trying to manipulate my paper poppy back together. It was like given Horton Hears a Who a tiny screwdriver and ask him to take apart a microchip using his feet. My staggering lack of success was incredible.

And there was the other passenger, staring at me. He wasn’t just staring at me, he was annoyed with me. Each time I failed to get my fingers to do my bidding and the poppy came apart, he got more and more irritated with me. I was aghast – it was my poppy, they were my stupid fingers, it had naught to do with him. Yet there he was, sucking air through his teeth every time I failed. When I finally got it back together and back on my coat, he let out a “Tsk!” an an angry long sigh, as though his intense aggravation at my inability to put a poppy together was a grievance on par with drowning kittens.

And, you know, I took exception to that. It’s bad enough that I can’t get my fingers to do what I want or need them to, I don’t need that clown there judging me, too. He’s exasperated with me for something that I can’t even control, and it wound me up.

So much so that I exacted a little revenge.

As I stood before the door of the train, ready to get off, I took advantage of the fact that it was just he and I at our the end of the train with the doors about to open and I relaxed my sphincter and dropped the most toxic green fart that the IBS karma gods have ever dared to grace me with.

The man went apoplectic with rage and stared at me as though I had grown another head (conceivable, given how noxious the fog was around us). I simply smiled, relished the feeling of not only releasing much of the cramping in my insides but of pissing off my judge and jury, and wrapped the action (if not the smell) of my guts around my neck like a fur stole.

-S.