On Friday morning I went to the post office, armed with reading material because you have to prepared in situations like these. To my non-surprise, the P.O. wasn't open yet, even though it was 9 AM, its opening time. A handful of people were gathered outside its doors, having an angry discussion about...something. It seemed related to the government and maybe Bear Stearns and definitely the problems with the post office and definitely the kind of thing I didn't want any part of. I kept my nose out of it.

9:05 rolled around and the angriest lady, who happened to be wearing a black leather suit (this is not a knock against the outfit--it's just that you would notice a lady in a black leather pantsuit as well) began knocking on the glass with her keys, shouting for the employees to let us in. I did not quibble with her action: infuriatingly, there is only metered parking available near the Post Office, making parking a gamble. Do you pay a little bit and get stuck in line forever? Or do you pay a lot and manage to breeze through? These extra five minutes mattered.

"WELL IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME!" the lady in black yelled once we were finally granted access. However, she was too mad to get any business done. She sort of stalked around the post office, yelling at people and announcing the names of the employees she was conversing with in case we wanted to take note. "YES I AM MAD!" she announced.

I mentioned this on Facebook later and someone asked me why I didn't take a picture of this meltdown in progress. Two reasons:

1.) I was scared of this lady. Wouldn't you be?

2.) I didn't begrudge her her anger (or her black leather suit) at all. She wasn't breaking the law. She wasn't damaging property. YES SHE WAS MAD. And if she hadn't been so angry on behalf of all of us I probably would have been around as mad as she was. I was a little grateful for distraction. Meanwhile, whe had a pretty good reason to be mad and also maybe on top of it she was having a really bad morning or week or month or year.

There's something a little sad to me about the instinct of whipping out one's phone to get it on record when someone steps outside the boundaries of typical behavior, like it implies that someone needs to be publicly shamed or ridiculed for being passionate or interesting or maybe just making a mistake (like the guys I saw recording the woman who laid down on the sidewalk at the bar near my house, her face in the sidewalk dog treat bowl. In that scenario, I was, of course, embarrassed for the lady but I was more ashamed of those men.)

Because there but by the grace of God go I, the angry lady at the post office or the drunken fool or the frustrated mom at the Apple store. We've all lost it at one time or another but now there's a danger that your bad moment could be caught on video and posted forever for people to mock. If you didn't know the backstory of the lady in black and just saw a video of her you'd probably think she was nuts and hilarious. But I was there and I can attest she wasn't nuts or drunk or funny-- she was just mad and we've all been there, and that doesn't need to become instant entertainment for the rest of the world to see.

Also? Maybe she was the real life Batman. And I wouldn't mess with Batman.