To the man with the Porsche

Dear Sir,

First, your Porsche is my least favorite color. It is a hideous bright turquoise and that, sir, is a nasty, nasty color.

Second, be advised that this is not a manly color, particularly when paired with the rainbow on your Hawaiian license plate.

Third, sir – and I hate to say this to the public at large, but you have left me no choice: you, sir, are no gentleman.

When I dinged your hideous bright turquoise bumper when pulling out of my parking space, I left you a note. I was under no obligation to do so. Two out of three people from whom I sought advice advised me not to leave you a note, but my sense of moral duty required that I do so. I could have walked away. I could have walked away from your silly turquoise, masculinity challenged car parked on a city corner in a town where my car – an old car, a damaged car, a car designed for city life – has been stolen twice and vandalized without apology. I could have walked away from your sissy bumper, so low and vulnerable, so delicate that it belongs only on a car that is parked in expensive garages and coddled with turtle wax weekly. I could have walked away. No one was there. No one saw. You chose to park your pansy car, your show-off car, your obscenely expensive car – that car that is a stand-in for self-confidence, for actual sexual prowess, for a full head of hair – on a city street, on a busy city street. Your car is catnip for crime.

And yet I left a note. I was the bigger person.

And how do you repay me?

You leave me two messages in the space of an hour. You are angry with me. You do not thank me for leaving a note. You tell me you are calling the police.

You, sir, are no gentleman.

You are the person who makes people like me regret that we are responsible people. You are the person who discourages other people from doing the right thing. You are the ungracious bully who other people wish ill. That is who you are.

No doubt you will sit in your bright turquoise living room nursing your rage and thinking how, had you not threatened me, I would not have called your insurance company back. I did and I would have. Why? Because I am the gentleperson you are not. I will not let sniveling, macho men like you in your bright turquoise Porsche crowd me off the bike path of righteousness

Also, I do not believe you are handicapped, even though your placard says you are. And I might turn you in for retaining out-of-state plates when you clearly live in California. Despite my note-leaving, I may well lurk in the shadows, waiting to photograph you and your lack of a wheelchair for the purposes of DMV investigation. I may well Google you and discover the true state of your statehood. I may well spend an afternoon crafting the perfect note of retribution to leave on your windshield and shame you, you non-handicapped colorblind bastard. But I did my duty first.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “In the morning, I will have higher insurance rates but you will still be a jerk.”

Good day to you, sir.