{"id":89192,"date":"2015-08-25T16:25:17","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T20:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=89192"},"modified":"2015-08-25T16:25:17","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T20:25:17","slug":"justification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/25\/justification\/","title":{"rendered":"Justification"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mensur_-_Dorpat_1820er_Jahre_edit\"<\/a>

German students fencing in the 1820s.<\/p><\/div>\n

The other day, I stopped to give myself a talking-to. I\u2019m worried about you, I said sternly. Your constant outrage is not healthy, and all these self-righteous interventions with strangers are completely out of control. I didn\u2019t want to be the one to say it, but you\u2019re turning into your mother.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was appropriately horrified. I knew what angel-me was talking about: the time my mom slammed on the brakes to leap out of the car and accost the neighborhood kids whose snowball had sailed into the street. Or the time she yelled at a preteen for smoking on the sidewalk in front of the rec center. Or the time she lectured a car full of my classmates about their grammar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just that I\u2019d found these incidents humiliating, although cowering while my mom railed at my contemporaries wasn\u2019t a great memory. Even at the time, I\u2019d felt sure that she wasn\u2019t getting through to them\u2014merely making herself a laughingstock, an uptight fuddy-duddy failing even to attempt to connect to her audience, captive though they were. I guess I felt like somehow it was about her<\/em>\u2014although admittedly, as I huddled in the car, I may have been projecting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Clearly, I have the same tendencies now. Maybe a part of me was secretly impressed with her reckless courage. Anyway, lately I\u2019ve been absolutely spoiling for fights, whether it\u2019s with nail-clipping boors on trains or rude patrons in supermarkets. I feel like some young sport in a Georgette Heyer novel, always trying to engage people in duels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was in a very dowdy neighborhood shoe store looking at the SAS comfort shoes, when I heard an elderly woman approach a clerk and ask, \u201cAre you going to help me or not?!\u201d<\/p>\n

I stood to attention like a pointer. In the interests of customer service, this poor employee would probably not be able to speak frankly to this hideous woman. Clearly, I\u2019d have to intervene. Adrenaline coursing through my veins, I dropped the beige Tripad Comfort moccasin and made a beeline for the Merrell section where the confrontation was in progress. \u201cAren\u2019t you Mark?\u201d the horrible woman was saying, still angry, but beginning to lose a bit of her conviction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d the guy answered. \u201cI\u2019m Tom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just then, another<\/em> clerk appeared, bearing a pile of shoe boxes. \u201cHere you go!\u201d he said, very upbeat. \u201cI also brought up a few similar styles for you to try. We didn\u2019t have the yellow in a seven, but I brought it in the tan for size, and we can order it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my God,\u201d the woman said, paling. \u201cI am so sorry. I\u2019m so<\/em> sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d Tom said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my God, I thought you were Mark,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I glanced up sharply. But they did sort of look alike\u2014medium height, balding, with brown hair and white shirts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do look alike,\u201d said Mark.<\/p>\n

I still kind of wanted to butt in and mention that, even had she been right, it wouldn\u2019t have justified her tone. But I didn\u2019t get the chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so sorry,\u201d she was repeating. \u201cOh my God, I\u2019m so embarrassed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was\u00a0sort of disappointed. Then we, me and I, left the store and had our talk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, I stopped to give myself a talking-to. I\u2019m worried about you, I said sternly. Your constant outrage is not healthy, and all these self-righteous interventions with strangers are completely out of control. I didn\u2019t want to be the one to say it, but you\u2019re turning into your mother.\u00a0 I was appropriately horrified. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[13861,8892,12511,19219,8226,19258,19257,6664],"class_list":["post-89192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-anger","tag-childhood","tag-city-life","tag-confrontations","tag-family","tag-heredity","tag-shoestores","tag-shopping"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRage at the Shoestore, Or, Am I Becoming My Mother?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein recognizes a new angry streak within herself.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/25\/justification\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Justification by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"August 25, 2015 \u2013 The other day, I stopped to give myself a talking-to. 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