My Courage

OK,

Before you get any ideas, this was not a 'stick it to the man' type of thing. I am a type of person who is deathly afraid of confrontation, and even more afraid of having to stick up for myself in these types of situations. I don't know why, but it's just the way I've always been, unless of course I've been provoked by wild boars or something. Then maybe I'd react differently.

But this is one of those moments that I will remember for a while.

You see, I'm an all talk type of person. If someone pisses me off, I say a lot of things that I would like to say to them, or do, or plot, or whatever. It doesn't happen though, if I'm confronted with the situation. I'm quite easily intimidated by those sorts of things. Again, I don't know why.

Some of you remember a post back in early February that displayed my distaste for a drummer in a band who claims I broke his cymbal. Naturally, I was taken aback by his accusations and felt immediate remorse, and regretfully, I left the situation in a context that led him to believe that I was culpable for the damage done, and would reimburse him for part of the purchase of a new cymbal. Mistake #1. I'll even admit to that.

Mistake #2 was getting angry about it, and saying a lot of swear words. Sorry Piper, your virgin ears must be sore. But after the fact, I realized that I was not the one responsible, and even if I was, I had not been made aware of the frailty of the cymbal, or the fact that it already had a crack, or even that it had originally been intended for this band's 'roadie' to swap the cymbals for a set that the school owned to prevent breakage. So I was angered by the fact that this guy was trying to take advantage of my concern and the fact that I was so taken aback that I was apologetic about it so that he could have a new cymbal purchased by someone else.

So a couple of months go by. I talked about it with several friends and bandmates. They all agreed that it would be absolutely absurd if he thought I should pay. So then came planning to break the news to him. Part of me just wanted him to never show up so I could avoid the issue. But what would I learn from that? Nothing.

So he shows up today, and I've been pondering this since February. I didn't sound angry or try to say mean stuff to him, I simply laid out the facts to him, and expressed that I had absolutely no intentions to pay for it.

I feel so proud of myself that I may just go pee in a few seconds here. Please join me in my pride today!