Notes from Maine - 2024/02/11

I’m a big fan of irrational outbursts. A couple of years ago, we witnessed a really fun confrontation at the fair. About twenty paces from the fried dough stand, and within smelling-distance of the Porta Potties, a young mother was fighting with her son’s even younger girlfriend. I think one of them was pregnant and they were fighting over someone cheating on someone? It was unclear, but wonderfully entertaining. I suppose I shouldn’t have been so captivated by someone else’s conflict, but nobody got hurt. Only insults were hurled. 

I should add, “At a distance,” to my opening. I’m a big fan of irrational outbursts at a distance. Up close, I really don’t enjoy them. When someone flips the table (metaphorically or otherwise) and starts screaming nonsense at me, I cannot meet them there. Don’t get me wrong—I can get furious, and I will sometimes raise my voice, but I won’t be dragged into irrationality by someone else. I have to let my righteous anger build and build into rage, and even then I’m going to maintain a certain level of logic in my rantings. 

If you fly off the handle and start yelling at me, I’m going to appear to flatline emotionally and probably not respond at all. If I bother to say anything, it’s just going to be insulting or sarcastic, and it will be delivered in a very measured tone. Inside, I will probably be seething.

Is that the right way to respond? I don’t know. I sometimes envy people who meet energy with energy. It seems like they’re standing up for themselves. They’re holding their emotional ground and accepting no intrusions. Here’s my problem with that response though—if someone rants and raves at me and I start screaming back, I’m meeting them on their crazy battlefield. Logically, I don’t think that anyone ever wins a fight on that turf. It’s always a stalemate. You might beat someone down verbally until they disengage, but nobody’s opinion will actually change. 

So is it better to create a standoff in crazy town, or just frown, blink, and walk away from people who are irrational? Currently, I always choose the latter. Do they suffer later? When they’re in a quiet moment, hours later, do they analyze everything they said and did and regret their craziness? I have no idea. But I know that I will be thinking about the confrontation for hours or days, still weighing the allegations and adjudicating the matter. Having decided exactly why the other person was wrong, I will sometimes compose a word-perfect response. I can create an iron-clad defense of everything I did that preceded the conflict. 

What’s the point?

You can’t combat irrationality with logic. At best, you’re shooting bullets at a ghost. At worst, you’re throwing water on a grease fire.

Here’s my current approach—if someone comes at me with crazy irrationality, I start a decision tree. One: should I disengage from further contact with this person? If we’re just incompatible, so be it. If their outbursts are only occasional and not too damaging, then maybe I just let it slide. Otherwise, it might be a good idea to keep crazy energy at a distance. Two: were they really yelling at me, or is there some other issue that agitated them? I think that sometimes an outburst can really be a cry for help. If the person is a close friend, maybe I should dig deeper and see if there’s something I should do. Three: did they have a valid point that they were unable to express rationally? After a little time has passed it’s worthwhile to reevaluate and see if there was a reason I was in the line of fire.

I’m noticing that I still haven’t given any ground to the idea of fighting fire with fire. I would rather be Spock than Kirk any day.

Back to the top—I mentioned that the conflict at the fair happened near the Porta Potties. That’s a colloquial term for a portable chemical toilet, like you might see at outdoor events or near construction sites. Down in Virginia when I was growing up we called the Don’s Johns. Don’s Johns, Incorporated is based in Gainesville Virginia, but I see that there’s also a Don’s Johns in Lineville Iowa supplying portable toilets to “Cordon, Leon, Trenton, Bethany and surrounding areas since 1990.” I wonder if they’re affiliated.

Up here in Maine, the rented portable toilet industry was dominated for a while by “Blow Bros Portable Toilets - Old Orchard Beach.” That’s a really good name for a portable toilet company. You might think that the name was the clever invention of an entrepreneur, but it was actually started by two brothers named Blow. A friend of mine went to high school with Stacy Blow, daughter of the Blow Empire (I may have changed the name to protect someone I never met). They had a big, expensive house. After all, they are, “Number One in the Number Two Business,” according to the signs on the sides of their toilets. When her parents were away, Stacy would have big parties in their big house and the parties were dubbed “Blow Outs.”

That business is a license to print money because most people are full of s***.