Spontaneous anger

I do not get angry very often and if I do, I certainly don’t show it. I actively see this as a fault in my character. From now on I see it as my obligation to show my anger more often in public and I can’t think of a better place to do than here in Spain, where it is some strange type of national pastime.

Spanish have no problem in venting their irritation at public authority figures, such as postmen, bus- and taxi-drivers and – dare I say – gas station holders and doormen (authority figures? In their eyes a definite yes!).

My ill-fated relationship with bus drivers took another turn last week as I tried to negotiate my way into a bus which was not going where I wanted it to be going. This sounds odd – and you are right it is – but I was doing so just to annoy the public authority figure which was in this case a rather ugly bus driver.

I will explain.

Upon arriving at the bus stop of bus 224 which brings me to a class out east in San Fernando de Henares there was a chubby bold man telling people very friendly that the bus was not going to stop at any of the other bus stops, in stead going it was going straight to its destination Torrejón. Thus, missing my San Fernando bus stop quite comfortably. I understood this, so after telling the man my destination I asked him when the next bus was coming which wás going to stop at my busstop.

I did so in good Spanish, but he replied in a very fast tongue. Hijo, no te entiendo, tienes que esperar. Son, I don’t understand you, you have to wait. I told him that I knew this already but that I wanted to know when the next bus was coming. He refused to answer my question as he presumably thought I was Polish (this happens quite a lot actually) and therefore not worthy of an answer.

Right there, I wanted to verbally tear this silly little man apart. I wanted to tell him to fuck-off and to answer my question politely. In stead I tried to enter the bus although it would not bring me to where I wanted to go. My plan worked, he started shouting at me “You shouldn’t do this, you are wrong, you are wrong, come back!”, he veered as he ran after me into his own bus. I had reversed the anger and this gave me great relief. We looked at each other and I laughed. The ultimate revenge.

The next bus arrived five minutes later and there were no further problems. However, I should have done things differently. I should have done things like Giovani Trapattoni – one time boss of Bayern Munich. As I was waiting for the next bus to arrive I remembered how this Italian football coach went on a verbal rampage against pretty much all of his players at a post-match press conference. The important thing here was that he did it in German – not his first language – but still went crazy. I wish I could do this in Spanish. Next time I run into a public authority figure messing things up for me I will do things like this (please follow link as it will demonstrate how I will be in the future):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqp64q7kHmw