Last Sunday was almost perfect. But an unexpected encounter with a bully turned my day, and my stomach, inside out. After an internal struggle, I figured out a way to deal with it that might be valuable for others, too.

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"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never break me." ~The Christian Recorder, African Methodist Episcopal Church, March 1862

Last Sunday was almost perfect. My daughter, Yael, took me out to a lovely restaurant for a belated birthday brunch. The weather was quintessential Chicago spring: sunny with gorgeous blue, blue skies. It could be a tease, since the Windy City has been known, more than once, to follow such a day with a random snowstorm, just to keep things interesting. I drove to meet my daughter with the sunroof open, the sun filling the car with a delicious and most welcome warmth.

Thanks to Waze, I was on time, and snagged the last spot in a parking lot quite close to the restaurant. Free parking because it was Sunday. Hooray! My daughter let me know that she was running late; no matter. I stood outside, indulging in two of my favorite pastimes: people-watching and online word games.

The day continued in a similar, delightful vein. We had a lovely meal. We enjoyed one another's company. We wandered around the neighborhood, stumbling upon a store that had many of the things that Yael needed for her upcoming trip. Afterwards, I dropped her off at her place and continued on to do a few errands of my own before heading home.

One of those stops was a suburban Bed Bath & Beyond. I got what I needed and headed back to my car. In and out in ten minutes. Excellent! I was grateful that the mall put stop signs outside busy stores like BBB to allow pedestrians to return safely to their cars. I had taken a few steps into the crosswalk when a motorist bore down on me. I gestured meaningfully toward the stop sign. The driver shouted, "I don't have to stop." Then, she added, "You could walk faster if you took off some weight." Her tone was almost conversational, the venom carried by the words alone. Pow.

I was stopped in my tracks, speechless, my mouth agape. I was astounded by the comment as well as the rage oozing from this person. She looked like she was going to implode. In the seconds before she sped away, I checked her out. She wasn't a teenager, or even a young woman. She looked to be middle-aged or older. Hmmmm.... What did that signify?

And then, suddenly, other emotions began pouring out of me. I was enraged. Sure, like everyone else, I get mad, but mostly with some modicum of distance. But this feeling was right there in my face, so to speak, and it wouldn't be denied. I wanted to toss off some brilliantly scathing remarks about how I could take off weight but no matter what she did, she would still be a complete jerk. Mostly, I just sputtered. I felt powerless, humiliated, eviscerated, paralyzed. All of the above.

Next, I wanted to spring after her and key her car or something equally destructive and stupid but momentarily, oh so satisfying. To attack and decimate her. Like she had done to me, with just a few, well-chosen words.

Finally, I was flooded with a tremendous, overwhelming shame. My face got very, very hot. I was ashamed. She had shamed me. And I'm not used to that. But, here it was, this shame bomb, landing at my feet with a loud thump.

Yes, I carry some unwanted, unwelcome pounds. Yes, I wish they were not there and I've developed some good habits to combat them. Also relevant: even when I was at a perfectly acceptable weight, I was a slow walker. I always got where I needed to go, but not that quickly.

Not that it would have mattered to this woman. Nothing mattered to her other than the fact that I was keeping her from getting where she wanted to go, when she wanted to get there. The ironic part of this is that this whole exchange probably took thirty seconds. My admitted meandering across the street cost her three seconds, tops. After all, how wide is a car? Five or six feet, at the most? How many steps is that? Four or five teeny tiny steps, maybe, but normal strides - two? Three?

I retreated to my car and sat there and shook. I wanted to crawl under a rock and disappear. I wanted to climb into my bed and stay there forever. I had had an exceptionally nice day, and this brief interlude had the power, if I let it, to blot that out. How sad is that?

"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." ~John Wooden

When I got home, I began to explore this deeply upsetting incident more thoroughly. A good friend called. I didn't mention what had happened. Part of me wanted to. But I couldn't. I was too ashamed. I also realized that I was not prepared to have this incident control me any longer than it had to. So, I needed to process. And I needed some help. I wanted to talk with my brother, John, who is really good at this stuff. He was not available until much later, so I sat alone with these thoughts for the entire evening.

I understand that we humans are hard-wired to focus on negative emotions and experiences. That we retain 'bad' memories longer than 'good' ones. That, at one point in the evolutionary process, this was helpful in assuring our physical survival. But these feelings were not serving me well now, today. Observing my outsized reaction, I thought how fragile I was to be so rocked by this comment from a total stranger! Did it have to do with the fact that I had survived a recent, late-life divorce? Or is it just the human condition to be so sensitive to slights?

And what exactly made it acceptable for this woman to melt down, hurling insults and hateful words at a stranger on a sunny, spring Sunday afternoon?

What about adolescents and teenagers who suffer bullying, not just from peers but from perfect strangers in cyberspace? I mulled over how well I would have handled this if I were that age. It made me shudder. I am so much better prepared now, with all those years and experience under my belt. Young folks, however tough they act, are still so vulnerable. They haven't been through enough yet to fortify them as they traverse those pesky speedbumps. And yet - look at my own reaction to just a few words, carelessly tossed like a grenade, to detonate amidst my minding-my own-business, isn't-spring-wonderful Sunday.

What fuels today's highly polarized and divisive climate? While it certainly starts at the top, Trump did not invent either intolerance or bullying. But like a maestro, he has fine-tuned * intimidation, going after gays, immigrants, the Press, the NFL, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood stars, and myriad others, including fellow Republicans like John "not a war hero" McCain; in short, anyone who doesn't agree with him, or gets in his way. Then, there are the many (predominantly women) he has deemed size-impaired: Rosie O'Donnell, CNN's April Ryan, Alicia Machado, the 1996 Miss Universe winner, other beauty queens, even foreign leaders, like North Korea's head of state. The dark Era of Trump has seen a disturbing and substantial increase in hate crimes; is it now kosher to attack anyone for anything? And does that include any of us who might not be as svelte as we might like to be?

Did Trump's relentless hatefulness give my verbal assailant permission to go after me, in a twisted version of the trickle-down theory? It certainly didn't help. Research after the Holocaust has shown that genocide starts slowly and escalates. The critical first step is to demonize and dehumanize those targeted. Emotional distance then permits hate to flourish and the rest predictably follows. Maybe I should be grateful that this woman's rage did not include packing an AR-15. In either case, it's time to devote some serious attention to getting these dangerous emotions and attitudes back inside Pandora's box, for all of our sakes. February 17th was Random Acts of Kindness Day. Oops. It's not too late, though.

Starting today, I commit to regularly practicing random acts of kindness. Please join me and share your stories and suggestions. Bonus: Doing good deeds not only improves your health but can be contagious. So, let's get together to drown out the harsh words of all those bullies out there by creating a tsunami of kindness!

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." ~Aesop

"A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions and the roots spring up and make new trees." ~Amelia Earhart

"When they go low, we go high." ~Michelle Obama

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Thanks once again to OpEdNews Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler, for help with images, quotes, and inspiration. You always make my work better, much, much better!

*The Daily Beast: Bullying Experts: Trump is an Eighth-Grade Girl , 9.16.2015

My previous piece on bullying: The World of Cyber Bullying: Author Nicola Mar Promotes Awareness 10.11.2015

Meryl Ann Butler, OpEdNews' Managing Editor, wrote a piece on Random Acts of Kindness in the wake of Sandy Hook (2012). Check it out!

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National Bullying Prevention Month, October

Random Acts of Kindness Day, annually on February 17th

World Kindness Day (international): annually on November 13th

Random Acts of Kindness Foundation

World Kindness Movement

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.