Attack

My friend and workmate, MF, is walking across an interesection on her way in this morning. She has the green light. Suddenly, this shiny, fancy car comes spinning around the corner and almost knocks her over. Pissed, she gives the side of the car a whap with her palm and yells "look out"!

The car screams to a stop and a young woman leaps out in a fury. She bears down on MF screaming, "You can't hit my car!" and MF yells back, "I had the right of way and you nearly ran me over!" The woman, still screaming and gesticulating with a finger, pokes MF in the face hard and then grabs her by her hoody sweater and starts dragging her around. MF, shocked, pulls loose and starts walking away but the woman comes after her and grabs her sweater again, wrenching her around, screaming that she (the driver) is going to call the police on MF.

MF gets away again and the woman leaves.

MF came in to the office all shaken up and we talked and hugged for awhile. She felt stunned but also guilty that she hadn't done more. That she hadn't fought back or called the police. I told her that anything she might have done that would have escalated the violence would have been dangerous. Should she have called the cops? Who knows. She just wanted to get away. I reminded her that getting the woman into court would just mean keeping that energy in her life for months so it's not such a straightforward call.

Wow. I just know that I wouldn't want to be that woman, living with that level of rage inside me.