Walking on the bay trail with my friend. I’d never seen as many cars parked and we walked side by side, aiming for 3-4 feet of distance between us and others.

A runner hollers: “Six feet, please!” as he passes by.

Now, as a Dutch person I would’ve hardly given it a thought, but this really rubbed me wrong! Proof of my success at becoming American.

Understanding how rude he was I told my friend in raging conviction: “If he wants to be prudent about keeping six feet of distance, maybe he shouldn’t go for a run on the busiest trail in the county on a Saturday morning.”

She agreed.

So we devised a suitably passive aggressive response in a very culturally integrated, if not too sophisticated sort of way.

When he came up to pass us again we walked waaaaay into the bushes and defiantly stared at him as he ran past.

We gleefully wallowed in our righteousness, like good citizens and green card holders.

If he had only mumbled “Thanks”, we would have felt even more justified in our rebellion, but his silence meant he came out on top. I just hope he went home to tell his wife about this great success of bossing around some women half his age and that she was jolly impressed by his masculinity and then they had wild sex all day because he is so amazing.