I Got Into a Fight With a Giant Douche Bag This Morning

I got into a fight this morning.

I was midway through my morning walk with my dog. Hudson. We make the same loop around our neighborhood every day, for the most part, a quiet winding road up and around our little enclave within Coldwater Canon. And then, I walked past a guy sitting in his Bentley, talking on the cell phone while his engine idling.

And that pissed me off.

Few things piss me off like a running engine for no reason. It's not like scientists from all around the world are officially proclaiming that we are in the midst of a global warming crisis, or that The United Nations Council has stated that we have a finite amount of time to bring about changes aiming at combating green house gases and emissions such as those which stream out of exhaust pipes in cars that are running for no reason.

Oh, they have?

Now look, I'm not insane. Were we to be making our morning walk in say, Buffalo, New York in freezing cold weather, then maybe I wouldn't be making such a to do...but this was a 69 degree morning in Beverly Hills, California, and so the following conversation ensued:

Me: Hey. Why don't you turn your car off while you're just sitting there.

(Note to self -- a simple "please" gets you places.)

Douche bag in Bentley: vroom vroom - he guns his engine to make very intimidating manly noise as if to tell me off.

Me: Turn off your car...what's your problem?

DIB: Why don't you get a job so you can find a better way to spend your time other than harassing people?

Me: Are you kidding me? Why don't you take your small penis car out of my neighborhood, you douche bag?

He then peeled away from the curb and yelled out the window at me as I walked away that I probably had some movie deal waiting for me at home, and why didn't I go deal with it, which I found remotely amusing and completely irrelevant.

Now I don't condone anger or violence, or even the use of the term douche bag, but what could possibly be the big deal, and why would someone feel the need to freak out over a simple request to cut an unnecessarily running engine in this day and age? And according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency's press release from the Office of Mobile Sources, emissions from an idling car doesn't just contribute to global warming, it wastes gas. In fact, if you are planning on idling your car for 30 seconds or more, you'll actually save gas by turning the car off and on. With the price of gas these days, that could end up being an entire holiday budget!

The point is we all need to find the simplest and easiest ways to help stop global warming. Turning your engine off while sitting in your car is not only a no brainer, but it can also lead to peace on earth...in my neighborhood, anyway.

Comments

[Steven Weber - Huffpost Blogger]

Suzy, you are so right. But be careful: the douchebags are becoming more militant.

[shano]

I think everyone should say something to Hummer drivers, or anyone who drives a new gas guzzler.

(look at all the truly beautiful small cars in Europe-expensive cars, but get terrific gas mileage)

Lets make these big cars as socially unacceptable as smoking cigarrettes. Take away peoples reason for buying them, really.

There is something to the competition to have the best. Lets simply change what people think is the best new thing to have.

Hybrids---NOT Hummers!!!

[CitizenE]

Elevated discourse on inconvenient truths: one soCal citizen finds another wasteful--the irony begs a response, impugns his sexuality both calling him out with one of the most pejoritive terms for a female imaginable, followed up by a comment on his (let's all look down our noses at it) apparently unappealing sexual equipment.
It all goes to show that merely polluting the environment and being called on it is mild compared to being a woman who likes sex, or a man upon whom fortune has been unkind.

[lamarguerite]

Suzy, you were right in principle, and I agree with you. However, you were wrong to lecture. The response you got from Mr. Douche Bag was to be expected. Basic psychology says, learn how to relate to people first. This person is not in the mindset to hear you, so you were wasting your time, and you pissed him off, and you got pissed off.

http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com
'It's All About Green Psychology'

[scaramouche]

lucky she didn't live in New York. People here mind their own business and don't take kindly to strangers telling them what to do. Global warming and emissions are surely a problem but won't be solved by getting in a strangers face. Lucky for her she didn't set this guy off - and she'd have no one to blame but herself.

[cuthbertallgood]

Why do you live in an area that does not allow you to walk to shop? No really, why do you by choice live up Coldwater instead of in a walking neigborhood? That is an honest question. Starting fights in public with foul namecalling is one thing, Suzy, but walking the walk in your own life would be more of a postive move.
And you live miles away from the corner store why? And you drive what when you go there? Got a grey water system? Do you use solar for hot water? Or does all of your money go into remaining in the 'enclave' and away from the daily life most people live?
Your carbon footprint to too huge to take you seriously. You choose to live in a place where oil must be burned for every shopping and eating need, when you could afford to live in much more 'green' communities. Bad choice makers don't get much sympathy from me when they jump on other's bad choices with foul speech and no context.
You could live anywhere, but you want to live where gas is burned each time you need anything. Perhaps your own well deserved guilt is what lead to this blow up. Not yelling at him, but at yourself I suspect.
Of you and Bently Boy, it is hard to tell who is the worst polluter. To me and other real world dwellers, you both look like oil oozing gluttons. Just so you know. Coldwater Canyon Enclave? Polluter's Haven.

[sa]

maybe telling someone else how to live
makes them rebel and do the opposite.
(see: USA vs. Iraq)

[Hattie]

I think it's rude to park and leave the engine running. It shows a careless lack of consideration for others.

[JulieSA]

It'd be really funny if this rich guy was a potential donor who'd been approached by the NRDC for a big gift. He'd probably recognize Suzy from tv and connect the dots.

First rule of fundraising: don't needlessly piss off your potential allies, especially over something trivial like the action of pulling over to make a phone call.

[dadw5boys]

You do not know much about engines do you?
It takes more gas to start a car than to allow it to idle a few minutes.
If the phone call prevented the person from standing in a long traffic jam for an hour it was worth it.

In the end you can't be hasseling people and trust they make good decisions. Or you could educate yourself about auto engines and fuel.

[Zenobius]

Interesting that you mention he was driving a Bentley. Would his actions have been less obnoxious in a Prius, or a Prelude?

I'm not opposed to class warfare, but if you want to get even with rich SOB's, maybe you should be supporting the Writer's Strike?

A link: http://www.wga.org/

If you want to support environmentalism, why not push for increases in CAFE {fuel economy} standards?

A link: http://www.net.org/fueleconomy/

I'm not inclined to judge either of you on the basis of this post, but at best you irritated him into driving off to waste gas elsewhere, which is unlikely to be effective.

[AlecEiffel]

:Golf Clap:

Thank GOD you were there to discipline this "douche bag." Good call on the sexist/gendered remarks against his "small penis." It really is the best way to initiate rational discourse on a serious topic.

By the way, if you live in a neighborhood populated by Bentleys, you and your neighbors are probably generating significantly more emissions and impacting the planet much more significantly than someone like me - an apartment dweller with a 4-cylinder station wagon who hasn't had the luxury of an airline flight in 3 years. How many square feet of living space do you heat and cool?

There are many ways to regulate our energy consumption and you nit-pick over THIS? AND THEN have the hubris to blog about this exchange as a self-righteous victory?

Next time please insult the police officer idling his V8 Crown Victoria...And please post about your moral victory when you're done.

[usna73]

Suzy, you are one fine broad. I admire your reasoning and your guts. Are you sure that you didn't grow up with me in the Bronx?!

[JulieSA]

Suzy ordered a perfect stranger to turn off his car, instead of politely asking, or, better, just minding her own business. Let's see what she accomplished by this:

1. The man not only disobeyed her, he revved his engine. Result: increase in emissions.

2. The man learned that at least one environmentalist is an arrogant, rude, busybody. Result: one more enemy of the environmental movement.

3. Suzy feels good about herself for confronting that bad man in the Bentley, even though her action was detrimental to the environmental cause. It's more important to Suzy to keep that sweet feeling of moral superiority than to actually accomplish something for her cause.

---I do volunteer work for a couple of large environmental organizations which have been extremely effective. They have literally changed the world, and changed people's attitudes over the years. A cardinal rule they have is that, in this field, you get a lot more done by engaging and educating people than you do by needlessly pissing people off. Confrontation (such as lawsuits, etc.) is only for the most dire situations.

[PascoBill]

Suzy,

A nice suggestion - you should have been received a little better, I'd say. I've read a lot about shutting off engines (even Click and Clack say turning off at a light is a win-win). Old info, like "5 minutes of gas wasted", do not apply to modern engines. Same with the old fluorescent bulb rule - go ahead and shut off the new ones - it does not take 30 minutes of electricity to restart. More like a couple seconds.