The Douche Awards

I was inspired this morning.
As I walked out of my building, I saw a large truck taking up two parking spaces on an already packed street. Just to paint an accurate picture, he was parallel parked, so it had nothing to do with the size (or lack thereof) of his truck. He was just being a douche.
This is a common occurrence on my street and it angers me in a way that it probably shouldn't because it rarely affects me. But I have a hard time understanding how some people can be so blatantly inconsiderate.
This lead me to wonder how I could let people like the truck driver know when they're being total douche's without being confrontational.
There is an artist (whose name eludes me) who used to hand out these amazing business cards that said something like: "Hello, I am black. You may not have known that, which could be why you chose to talk in a way that you didn't realize I would find offensive" when she found herself in a conversation that was racist. She was a black woman with fair skin and was often mistaken for white. You can imagine how uncomfortable she must have been to find herself in conversations where African Americans were talked about negatively. So she decided to hand out those business cards whenever she found herself in a situation where she was mistake for someone who would have been interested in racist dialogue.
I'm not wanting to go quite that far with it. After all, I did say 'without being confrontational' (aka: I'm scared). But maybe I could make up some business cards like this:

Congratulations! You've been
awarded a DOUCHE AWARD.
Due to your recent behavior, the
Douche Committee deemed you worthy of
an award. To see what you've won,
please go to
www.doucheawards.com

(and then I'll set up some bogus website where I can give examples of people being douches.)

What do you think?

Share a Story, and a Meal

Sometimes it's easy to feel helpless. For example, on my way to work, I pass a part of town that is popular with Seattle's homeless. There's usually a person or two begging for money at the off-ramp, but for that one person, there are four more huddled together in a car or finding shelter under the bridge.
When I can, I try to share my lunch but as I pass along my orange or my sandwich, I can see the huddle of people in the shadows and my attempt to help suddenly doesn't feel like enough.
I'm sure you can think of a time when your gesture to help didn't seem like enough either. But at least you did something. Helping one person in their struggle just might pay it forward, so to speak. So if you'd like to pay it forward today, here's your chance. Why not share a story here?
For every story you share, Country Crock will donate a meal through Second Harvest.
Go on. I'm sure you can think of something.