I encountered a horrible man this morning while walking the dog. I’m in NorCal visiting my parents for Chinese New Year and this morning, following my normal routine, I took Goliath for a walk. Now, I am going to admit that Goliath is a menacing looking dog. He’s 90lbs, all black and his sheer size is intimidating. In his mind though, he is a 15lb puppy. He is excited about playing and loves other dogs. He is so unaware of his sheer size that he gets intimidated by big dogs, so much so, that he has to be put in the medium dog play room at day care.

So, on our walk, we encounter another dog walker with a small lapdog. He moves to give me a wide berth, as most people do when seeing a dog of Goliath’s size. Goliath, though, wanted to say hi to his dog and tried to pull me over. The man freaks out and tries to yank his dog away from us, stumbling in the process.

As I go to apologize and ask if he is ok, the man starts cussing me out, calling me names and ending with the famous, “You’ll hear from my lawyer!” line and walks away. As I start walking back toward my parents’ house, I’ve noticed that he’s waiting for me around the corner. He is demanding to know where I live. Um, okay, like I’m going to tell you that you, Creeper. So, proceeds a 45-minute ordeal of the man following me and yelling at me, trying to find out where I live.

First, he throws out the veteran card. “I’m a vet…I fought in the war.” Now, if you know me, you’ll know that I have the highest respect for those that serve and have served our country. I grew up across the street from a man who fought in Pearl Harbor and I would walk to his little house every day and listen to his stories, practice typing on their new word processor and learn how to garden from his wife. The funny/sad thing is though, the only three times in my life where I’ve encountered blatant racism, was from vets.

Yes, this man, made the comment, “You Asians think you own everything around here.” Any time someone starts a phrase with,” You people…” it’s just not going to be a good thought. He proceeds to tell me, in the middle of the street mind you, that my “people” spit on him when he came back from the war, and this and that. This is where I finally stopped being respectful and started baring my teeth. I unequivocally told this man that he was ignorant and a bully, and there was no way on Earth I was going to have him follow me home because I’m not an idiot. Oh, and I certainly have never spat on anyone in my life. Then I thanked him for serving OUR country.

He continued to follow me, told me to call the police then if I didn’t like it. Now, most people would’ve called the police. I am in the mindset that this was stupid, policemen have way better things to deal with than a situation where a grown man couldn’t act like an adult. Unless he posed a threat to me, I wasn’t going to bother the police.

I weighed my options. I could either out run him in my pj’s and flip flops, to which my pride said, “Hell no, you don’t run from bullies,” or figure out a mediator, not the police, to get this man away from me. I tried to get a man sitting in his truck to get the guy off of me, but this grumpy old man apparently is a well-known complainer in the neighborhood. So, I went to the leasing office. Luckily, the office manager was right there. She listen to my story, she recognized the man, and I told her I didn’t want him following me home, because “That’s creepy, and I have a daughter…” Yep, threw that one in there. I know when to show my cards.

She made him stay away while I walked away, but who knows, I’m not going to put it past him that he’s just lurking around somewhere waiting to see which house I get out of.

My favorite line of the day, which still makes me laugh to think of it, was, “Sir,” (and yes, I called him, ‘Sir’ the entire ordeal, because I do believe in being respectful–minus the part I called him an “ignorant a*hole and possible pedophile”) “I am not going to allow you to follow me home. How do I know you’re not a rapist?” To which he replied “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not all that.”

So, not only do “my people” act like we own the place, I should wear makeup when I take the dog out for a walk. Lesson learned.