Give Them Their Space

It's like I was saying yesterday: Folks are a little crazy nowadays, like the Mad Hatter. You have to give them their space.Once I rode down in an elevator with a man who, the minute he boarded on Floor 6, exhaled angrily. I was the only other person on this up-flying lift and I could plainly see he was mad at something; steam was practically coming out of his ears.“Bad day, huh?” I said with my eyebrows up in what I thought was a sympathetic way.“EXCUSE ME?!” he replied with a withering look.“I’m sorry!” I said. "I just thought… Well I thought you seemed ...just sort of frustrated.”He maintained his furious silence as on we swooped past Floors 7, 8 and 9.That’s when he exploded, just as we approached Floor 10: “My God damn SISTER!” he said.I felt a little vindicated, sure, since I had read his mood right after all, but still. The lesson I took from THAT day was that often when  a person is angry and it’s  best to just have to let them have their anger and stay out of their way.