Is It Just Me – Standing Up
“The kid ordered toast, not a bagel” snapped the unsavory server, her eyes rolling up to the ceiling.
“No. My son ordered a rye bagel” I said, tightly. We had endured this woman’s rudeness for the entire visit to our usual Sunday breakfast place.
“I know this for a fact” I added, “because I’m the one who ordered it for him.”
“Fine!” The testy waitress swept the toast back to the kitchen where she would probably reshape it into a bagel using a couple of spit-gobs.
My two sons gaped at me, their brown eyes wide with concern. They are confident kids, yet I could tell by their silence that they were unsettled by my confrontation with a stranger. Still, I would have to deal with this situation or what kind of an example would I set about self- assertiveness?
As a child, I never stuck up for myself, not to my parents, my teachers, my friends, or my “non-friends”, the kids who hurled insults from pea-shooter mouths. While I might have been angry inside, my thoughts remained shelved like library books that are too high to reach.
I didn’t evolve much as an adult either. I spoke up politely for my opinions at work, but if I felt hurt by a friend or treated unfairly by a store clerk, I bore up silently, afraid of unpleasantness and probably afraid to lose the war.
My meekness transformed into something entirely different the moment I became a mother at age 36. During day two of Charlie’s life, a nurse informed me that the foot- prick test that was standard procedure for all newborns had been misplaced and would need to be repeated.
“I’m not allowing you to put my baby through the pain of a foot-prick again just because you screwed up”, I bellowed to the same woman who would later be responsible for administering my enema. My tirade might have been a bad judgment call, but I wasn’t going to let anybody hurt my child.
This outburst heralded the great unleashing of my maternal instincts. But, as with all new skills, I experienced growing pains. I made the odd mistake.
When Charlie was three, we traveled to the Florida gulf coast, and I enjoyed watching my strong-legged boy run crazy eights all over the sand, reveling in the freedom of wide, open space. One morning, as Charlie explored the tide’s detritus with his bagel in hand, a cheeky gull swooped down and stole it. Well, you’d think the bird had taken the boy instead of the bread. I chased that bandit down the beach, screaming at it to stop flying and return the stolen baked good. My husband and son looked on, one laughing, one crying for his breakfast. Soon, the bird returned with some friends, in hot pursuit of . . . me! I finally realized that they were after the other half of the bagel that I still held. But, Charlie needed his breakfast so instead of surrendering, I shooed them away with my free hand, clutching the food to my bathing suit. The gulls didn’t get our bagel, but I got a head decorated with bird poo. When I presented the remaining half to Charlie, he told me he was full and suggested, “Mommy, feed dah birds.” Then, he turned to investigate a dead jellyfish.
“A little bit over-zealous, perhaps?” asked my husband, handing me some tissues with which to mop my hair. But, I felt good. I was a mother standing up for her child.
Nearly ten years later, my younger son, Harrison, aged two and a half, was experiencing multiple ear infections. Both his pediatrician and the specialist to whom we’d been referred recommended the uncomfortable procedure of having ear tubes inserted. Harrison would have to receive a general anesthetic and with it, inherent risks.
This felt all wrong to me. I had Harrison’s hearing assessed and since it was perfectly fine, I decided to wait out the infections having learned that they often dissipate by a child’s third birthday. Fortunately, Harrison grew out of his ear infections and I grew in to trusting my own judgement.
Now, sitting stiffly in the restaurant, my assertiveness was chomping at the bit. There still wasn’t anything else to chew. Our server had not returned with Harrison’s bagel nor had she brought Charlie the bowl of soup he’d politely ordered thirty minutes earlier. Every time I tried to get this woman’s attention, she looked away. Finally, we locked eyes, or should I say engaged our missiles, and she stomped over.
“Look”, I began, smiling wanly like a tired driving instructor on valium. “I can see you’re having a bad day. But, could you please bring my sons’ soup and bagel.”
Apparently, I lost her at “I can see you’re having a bad day”. She raised her shoulders and backed away. “I’m having a bad day?? How dare you!” she squawked.
The restaurant went quiet. The diners’ curiosity caused them to lower their coffee cups and cream-cheese drenched twisters. Our indignant waitress strode halfway across the room and turned. “I will not put up with this abuse!” she yelled. “I’m going to get someone else to take care of your table because I am no longer your server!”
I raised both my thumbs. “Awesome!” I replied.
Harrison got his bagel. Charlie got his soup. I got the bill and thought that chasing the gull down the beach had been an easier way to feed my children than this unfortunate experience.
Confrontations with strangers agitate my nerve endings like feedback in a concert hall. I felt just a little bit less human having been lured into an altercation. But, on the way home, my children talked about “the incident” as it is now known. They even said I “rocked”. Because of their blessed existence, I have learned to err on the side of standing up for those who are dear to me.
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