Sometimes It's Okay to Be Snitty.....

....and sometimes it's wiser NOT to be a snit.

I almost never choose wisely. Sometimes I do...

Like the other day, when I was on my bike. A car behind me started blowing its horn insistently and incessantly. We soon came to a very sharp curve in the road (actually it's more of an "L" than a curve), and there was an accident there. (I'm surprised there's not an accident there every hour of every day.) Traffic was stopped in both directions while they loaded the car onto a wrecker, so it was a perfectly acceptable time to get snitty and turn around to face the driver behind me. I was ready to yell, "What is your PROBLEM?" when the lady (whose windows were down) said, pointing excitedly, "It was her! It was her!" She was indicating the woman in the car behind her, and she was very interested in having me understand that it wasn't SHE who was blowing the horn. The impatient one turned off onto another road, because apparently neither a bicycle NOR a wreck was going to keep her from her appointed duties.

Sometimes, though, I don't choose very wisely as to the appropriate level of snittiness.

A couple of days ago, in preparation for our trip, I went to the bank to cash a check. I was forced to use this archaic form of financial transaction because the amount of money I wanted to withdraw was more than our bank will allow to be withdrawn from an ATM.

Late in the afternoon, our house phone rang. Almost no one we want to talk to uses that number, as we both use our cell phones more than the house phone these days. The caller I.D. indicated a town about two hours away, so I figured it to be a political or sales call. So I let the answering machine pick up. (Yes, we still have one of those.)

The woman identified herself as being from our bank, and she said she was looking for, "Uh.... uh.... Day-na... Uh... Uh... Uh... Poo... Poo-it."

Now I realize my first name, D-E-N-A, is unusual enough to give some people pause. People can't spell it when they hear it or pronounce it (obviously) when they hear it. I get "Diana," "Dana" (pronounced DAY-na), even "Dee-Anna." How the HELL do people get Dee-Anna out of four letters?????

And our last name... P-R-U-I-T-T.

I just don't see a lot of different ways you can pronounce that. It rhymes with "Do It," so we could be our own spoof of a Nike commercial.

There's no graceful way to say this, so I'll just wade on in it. Some members of some ethnic groups (actually a number of ethnic groups) simply cannot pronounce our last name. And I just don't know why. Call me insensitive.

After she stammered and stuttered and didn't come close to getting either of my names right, I snatched up the phone and interrupted her. I may or may not have snarled my name(s) correctly. I felt completely justified in being snitty at that point.

Until the woman mentioned that I had left my checkbook at the bank.

My whole stupid checkbook.

Just roll that snitty attitude up, put it in your purse ('cause there's plenty of room in there, without the missing checkbook), and go on up to the bank to retrieve your checkbook.

Dummy.