I am part of an elite contingent of “A” words

This a.m. on CBS Sunday Morning commentator Mo Rocca did a piece on “The A-Word,” more commonly known as the word “asshole.”

The report included mentions of Mel Gibson (“If I’ve still got my pants on in the second scene, I think they’ve sent me the wrong script.”), Kanye West (“I am God’s vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.” / “I don’t even listen to rap. My apartment is too nice to listen to rap in.”), Donald Trump, Adam Sandler and more.

Comically (well … possibly comical … I’ll let the reader decide), I’ll include myself on that list based on a little incident which occurred yesterday morning.

I pulled up in a panel van to get gas at a self-serve gas station (are there any other kind in this day and age?), got out, fed $20.00 into an automated teller and went back to pump lifeblood into the vehicle. I had made a mistake, however. The gas tank, I discovered, was on the other side of the van and the hose wouldn’t reach. So … back in the van I went to flip it around.

There was no one but me on the entire lot of 16 pumps, but when I had pulled forward then glanced in my rear view mirror, there was a vehicle that snuck into the space I had just pulled out of. I backed up and mouthed I had paid for gas at the pump, but hadn’t completed the transaction to a woman who quizzically wondered what I was doing talking to her silently through our windows. She shrugged, looked at me rather piss offedly and gestured she didn’t know what I was talking about, Willis.

I put the van in park, got out and politely asked her to roll her window down so I could explain. She got more teed. Unwilling to accommodate me, I raised my voice so she could hear through her window and attempted to offer my plight. No rolled down window was forthcoming. Instead, she threw up her hands, jammed her car into drive forcefully and dashed off to another pump across the station. I shook my head slightly at her spurning and finally backed the van to the pump.

As I was pumping gas, I looked up to see where the woman had gone. She was out of her car, glaring at me. I called out to her apologetically and tried offering my apology once more.

“Whatever!” was her reply, cutting me off immediately.

I couldn’t help myself. “Really … ?!?” I responded, raising my voice somewhat.

I checked that my gas pump was engaged and working and decided to take action. It was asshole time. I marched over to her, keeping a car’s length between us. “Ma’am? I was trying to apologize nicely to you I hadn’t pumped my gas, but you didn’t want to here what I had to say. I just wanted you to know that,” I told her just a bit snottily. She threw up her hands yet again and said she didn’t want to hear it.

I closed with “You’re welcome,” turned tail and headed back to my vehicle.

I didn’t realize until after viewing Mo Rocca’s report the woman had probably called me an asshole several times over, probably out loud in her car and in her mind half a dozen times over and later to her friends and husband.

Now? After the fact? I feel like a genuine asshole. In a manner of speaking, I feel a bit like Don Draper from Mad Men with a smidge of Walter White from Breaking Bad coursing through my veins and coiffed like The Donald.

Okay … maybe not.

But I can dream, can’t I?