October 13, 2004

• Did I do the Right Thing? Comments Invited

  
  

  Every now and then, I blog about my NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) as part of the therapy.  Here I go again.

  
  

  A major part of the therapy–maybe the only part, really–consists of simply paying attention to what I am saying and doing, asking myself “Is this right?  Is this practical?   Is this reasonable?  Or is it just NPD?”    This  constant self-examination (at least when I remember to, which is far from really being all the time) makes for an uncomfortable existence, but therapy was never meant to be comfortable.  This time, regarding a few specific occasions, I am throwing this out to everyone who reads this, and I invite your comments.  This may not be the best place: arguably, there is a higher incidence of NPD among bloggers than among the general population, but here goes anyway.

  
  

  The other day at my flea market stand, a huge double-trailer truck pulls up right alongside me, the driver hops out, leaves the motor running. I think, okay, the guy wants directions, or wants to buy something, so I get out of my car.  The trucker proceeds to walk across the highway to a construction site, disappears into a building under construction.  This gives me a problem–the truck totally obscures my stand and takes up all the available parking.  I was pretty much out of business for the duration.What’s more, this is during evening drive time, when traffic is heaviest and I often do the most business.  After a few minutes, I head-tripped about slashing his tires or spray-painting some rude words on one of the trailers–this was pure fantasy, by the way.  I am capable of doing some pretty heinous shit, but not when there is such a good chance of being seen, nabbed, and punished.

  
  

  After half an hour of stewing in my own juices, not to mention his diesel exhaust fumes, I decided to give up, call it a day, and close early.  This in itself was mildly distressing, not only because of the potential lost business, but also because I had told someone earlier in the day that I would be staying open until seven.  After a lifetime of casually breaking commitments, now I make an effort to keep them.  Before I left, though, I took down the “how am I driving?” 800 number, and the ID numbers on the truck. The truck was still there when I left.

  
  

  The next day, I called the number, reported the incident.  I took pains not to exaggerate– exaggeration being another NPD trait–and  conceded that I didn’t know if the incident had really cost me any business–heck, it’s a slow time of year, maybe no one would have stopped anyway.   But it was still a pretty egregiously selfish thing to do, I thought.  The strip is like a half mile long, he could have parked anywhere else and not have troubled me, he would have had to walk a little farther, though.  Alaskans ,as a rule, do not like to walk.

  
  

  Since I had cooled down in the interval, I was even civil, didn’t cuss and bitch and moan.  I did say that I wanted to be notified of any  disciplinary action taken.  The person at the other end thanked me for calling, I thanked her, and that was that.  Then I began to second-guess myself?  Did I do the right thing?  Should I just have kept quiet?  On the other hand, the Pepsi company did provide a toll-free number for such complaints. What if the guy finds out I was the one who complained, comes back and confronts me?  Truckers tend to be big and sturdy and I am not, although I AM usually armed at the stand.  So I dunno.  The thing is done and I’ll just have to wait and see what, if anything, happens.

  
  

  Next.  Although my attitude towards other people tends to  range from indifference to dislike to contempt, I do have a soft spot for critters.  I hate to see them abused or neglected or endangered, which led to my calling Animal Control.  Here’s  critter case number one.  My next-door neighbor, like many other denizens of Felony Flats, is a doper with no visible means of support.  He keeps odd hours.  He also keeps a dog, which howls and whines and cries when he is away.  One night, the dog woke me up at 3:30 am, kept howling and so forth until around four, when the guy returned.  He also lets the dog run loose, in defiance of local ordinances, and I am getting tired of chasing the dog off my porch, where I store merchandise and stuff.  And, I am getting even more tired of the dog pissing on my car.

  
  

  Yesterday was the last straw.  The dog was confined in his pickup truck, and it was making an ungodly racket.  I don’t know if the guy was at home or not.  Anyway, I called Animal Control, they offered to mail me a complaint form or give me a FAX number.  I got the FAX number, wrote out a compaint, and went across the highway to the UPS store and faxed it.

  
  

  While I was at it, I mentioned another neighbor.  She has these black lab puppies, cute as hell, all feet and foolishness.  She lets them run loose most of the time, which bothers me on two counts–three, if you count the fact that she is getting away wth breaking the law.  I tend to not like it when other people get away with stuff that I wouldn’t do in the first place.  But more seriously, I have seen them playing on the edge of the highway–they run out on it, and they could get killed and/or cause a major accident.  It’s a busy highway.  Also, they come down to my stand and eat the food I put out for the cats there, so the cats have been going hungry lately thanks to them.

  
  

  Again, I dunno.  Should I  have confronted the dog owners myself?  Then again, I tell myself, it is not my job to enforce the leash law, and it IS the dog owners’ job to know and abide by the law.  Then again, someone once write that the moral thing to do is usually the hardest, most troubling thing to do.  Maybe I did right.  Damned if I know.  I DO know that when my NPD gets me off the rails, sometimes I get so damned far off the rails that I don’t even know that I’m off the rails.  Then if someone points this out, I often react with petulance or sulks  or hostility. 

  
  

  Sigh.  It ain’t easy being mean.  I’m working to get past it, to transcend it.  I know I have a long way to go, don’t know how far exactly, but it IS a really interesting trip.

  
  

  PS–Now I am even wondering if the act of calling for comments is just another manifestation of NPD.  Oh well. . . .

  • 2:45 pm
  • 6 Comments