Having grown up in Hawaii, I’m often asked if it’s true that Hawaiians* hate all white people. I usually tell them what my mother, a white woman from Louisana who worked with the roughest, most challenging kids on the island, told me: If you treat people with respect, they’ll respect you. 

I find this to be true and is often the way I try to live my life. I go into situations with an open mind, greet people with a smile, and when all else fails, put others at ease by making a joke at my own expense. Usually I get the same in return.

However, fuck with me, and I’ll fuck back.

Having lived in passive-agressive Portland for the last three years, I hadn’t seen this no-nonsense side of myself in some time. But now I’m in New York, where passiveness ceases to exist, and Miss No-Nonsense has returned. 

Within the last few days I: (a) waved a five dollar bill in the face of a cashier at Tasti D-Lite, screaming, “I’m gonna stand here until you let me taste the Peachy Keen!” after she’d denied me a third sample of frozen yogurt; and (b) banged on the door of a uni-stall, unisex bathroom after watching a dude go in there on a cell phone and waiting five minutes. Both times, a kind, strange man came up behind me and asked what was wrong. Once I’d explained the situation(s), the man in scenario (a) asked the cashier for a Peachy sample and handed it to me; and the one in (b) pounded his fist on the door with command and concision.

Some may see this as furthering the cycle of negativity and disrespect. For me, anger ends where chivalry begins. Call me old fashioned, but I feel honored, charmed even, by someone standing up for the respect of a fellow human being. And New Yorkers do with a sense of efficiency. Double swoon.

* This is what white people think local people are called.