egotist |ēˈ●gə●tist|

"Are you an egotist?!"

The man barking the words at Charles looked to be nearly 90.  He had sparse wisps of white hair not really covering his scalp.  They were supposed to form a combover, but the wind had blown them loose and they did not conceal the top of his head which was so transparent it couldn't hide large numbers of bulging blue veins.  He was wearing loose-fitting wool slacks, a red cardigan and old-man athletic shoes:  sturdy, earth-toned and with very substantial soles.  He drove a clean and new-looking mini-SUV type car.  It was safe and stylish, but modestly conservative.

We had just pulled up to a gas pump outside of Costco.  Charles had gotten in line behind one set of pumps when he noticed another pump that was free, so he quickly maneuvered our little Honda into place next to the open pump.  The whole time he was doing so, we could hear a car approaching with its horn blaring.  The driver had lain on the horn at the entrance to the gas station, and the sound continued almost until he pulled up next to us, at another just-vacated pump.  The older man had apparently spotted OUR newly available pump at about the same moment we did, and had had his eye on it from 100 feet away.  He was yelling at Charles with the window down as he approached.  Charles was already out of the car swiping our cards in the process of filling our tank when the older man pulled up.  I was sitting in the passenger seat of the car and I could see the faces of all the other customers and the attendant.  They had been startled and bothered by the sound of the horn, were watching the hostile old man make his approach, were watching Charles fill our tank, and were nervously wondering if they were about to witness an ugly confrontation. They had their heads mostly down, but they were peering up through their eyelashes, furtively, too embarrassed to look straight on but unable to look away.

The man didn't hear Charles's first words because he was still hollering out his window.  Charles had said, "Sorry about that.  You having a bad day?"

I didn't hear the old man's response, but I heard the attendant say quietly to Charles, "You're a way nicer man than I am."

Out of his car now, he continued to holler angrily, "You're not 18!  Stop driving so impulsively!  You're dangerous!"  The old man was not softening a bit, even though Charles, dressed in his suit--fresh from a visit to the temple, approached him with apologetic words, spoken in a soft voice.

Charles  in his suit.

Charles noticed a tag on his shirt that said something about "oncology" as he talked to the man, and he figured it indicated that he was in cancer treatment, or that perhaps someone he loved was in treatment.

I still couldn't hear anything Charles said, but I watched the other drivers shaking their heads at the behavior of the man.  They finished their transactions and drove off, sensing that there wasn't going to be an altercation.

We finished pumping our gas, joked with the attendant about quittin' time, and headed home.  The older gentleman was still there, filling his tank and muttering under his breath.  As we neared the exit, I noticed a woman driving toward us who had been ahead of us at the pump.  She had exited the parking lot and decided to do a 180 and pull back in.  She was rolling her window down and slowing as she approached.  Charles rolled our window down to hear what she had to say.

"I just wanted to say thank you for how you handled that.  That was so nice of you.  People just don't do that anymore.  Really."

Charles said, "I'll probably be just like that in a few years.  I hope people will be nice to me!"

As we rehashed the incident on the way home, Charles asked, "What's an egotist?"

"I have a guess," I said, "but I've only heard that word used in black and white movies, so I'm not positive.  Let's look it up when we get home!"

It turns out that an egotist is someone who talks and thinks about himself excessively because of an undue sense of self-importance.

Is Charles an egotist?  I'll answer that.

No.

I'm so proud of him.