… and actually a hell of a lot more. Now, with the calm of the morning, and many days behind me, I have had time to reflect on this 🖇️ ’Journal Storm’ and understand a little more about what was going on.

The Story

It had been a long hot day, Margarita’s and a bite to eat were necessary - so we decided to hit a local bar for Happy Hour. Jax was finishing off some errand, so I went ahead, sat down in a couple of corner seats, ordered a Margarita, some ‘bites’ and waited. I looked around and observed the other patrons - you know - as you do.

All was what we would expect, except for one guy who’s behavior with the bar staff was weird. He clearly had an issue about how he was being served. ’Spidey senses up’ … he was definitely more antagonistic to the one woman bar keep than the two male ones. Just an observation. Thought nothing of it. No words were exchanged.

15 minutes in, Jax appeared, extended the food order, modified the margarita order (as she does, it is her prerogative) and we were off to the races.

Not sure how it all started, but before I knew it Jax was in conversation with this same dude. I paid no attention - just earwigging. Climate Change, Immigration, American Exceptionalism, Biden’s lies, Democratic corruption were all terms that he brought into the conversation seemingly from nowhere. I nudged Jax and suggested she just let him go. He wasn’t worth the time. She wanted to explore. Before long I was brought in to the flow - since he was making some pretty outlandish statements about Climate Change … I offered an opinion … and was rapidly ‘closed down’. I disengaged. Jax continued, developing the ‘conversation’ to how climate change has a strong link to human migration and so trafficking (very much her world), and that rapidly morphed into him going on about ‘IMMIGRATION’, ‘BIDEN’, ‘WALL’ and … Jax pointed out to him that whatever your politics, it is clear that … he cut her off - asking her how she knew more than ‘experts’.

I couldn’t resist, so I once more interjected … and asked whether he wanted to listen to what she had to say, because she actually is an expert. He shut up for two seconds and then asked her if she had seen ‘that movie’ … I drifted off and he’s once again in full force telling here that ‘she is no expert - and how can she possibly know what she is talking about … I tried to pull her out again. Failed …

The dude went on about something or other … I didn’t care what and pointedly got out my phone and posted this (to clarify - the ‘they’ referred to in that post was actually Jax - not sure why I said ‘they’).

The conversation lecture continued and then he leant over to me and said ‘high five’? Holding out his hand, grinning. I ignored him. ‘fist bump’? … changing his hand formation.

I continued to ignore him and Jax told him that she knows me and ‘he isn’t going to do that’.

His voice raised (I assume that was so he made sure that I heard) …

You see this is the problem - how can we ever discuss things we disagree about if people don’t engage.

I had had enough and asked the barkeep if there was another part of the bar we could move to. (No, sorry, full).

A quiet exchange with Jax … and then I looked directly at the dude and said …

“You are spouting such a pile of crap that I am no longer in this conversation.”

… and walked out to the deck.

I was there for about ten minutes and got a text from Jax to meet her ‘downstairs’.

I did.

The next few days, Jax kept going back to the conversation. Why was he like that? Why was he so rude? How could I have been different? (She’s good at that - I should learn from her more.) Slowly what happened in those ten minutes emerged … sadly he had got to her … like crap on your pants.

That was last week - thankfully, she now seems to have got over it.

I haven’t. I better not see him again.

What follows I can only report on because Jax stayed for an additional ten minutes.