Me 1, Mouthy Punks 0. I think.

I had your back today, Sly.

My razor-sharp wit won again today.

Sort of.

I was rolling through Chillicothe when I came to a stop at a light. I had the windows down and the sunroof open so Spark and I could enjoy the nice weather and, as always, I had my music playing. Not too loud, mind you, but loud enough I suppose. After almost 50-years of listening to rock music rather loudly and going to hundreds of live shows the old ears aren’t what they used to be.

Anyway, as I’m sitting there at the light a couple of kids, around 16-17 years old, cross in front of me. I notice one of them take a furtive glance at me but I thought nothing of it, as I tend to frighten some people before they get to know my engaging and magnetic personality.

But just as the kids reach the curb, one of them looks back and yells, “Hey! Your music sucks!” Then the other kid flips me off.

What the hell?

Well, at that point Sparky became unglued but I sat there stunned for a second. My next thought involved running them down, but I dismissed that idea as possibly a little too radical.

At this point a more mature easier-going person might have let it slide, but I couldn’t for a few reasons.

First off, the kids were smartasses. Secondly, you don’t criticize my musical tastes. Thirdly, the song that was playing was by Sly & the Family Stone, and the kid who yelled was African-American for God’s sake. That made his actions, in my mind, doubly egregious. I mean, Sly was cool and had one of the first-ever interracial bands. Be proud of your musical heritage, kid.

But something clearly had to be said, right? This kid had no idea who he was dealing with. Remember that I had only a second to come up with this killer retort:

“Oh yeah? Well, YOU suck!

Zing! Killer line on my part.

“And you’re short!”

Burn! Then I went in for the kill.

“And fat!”

Too far?

Then, since I was turning in the direction they were walking anyway, I thought I’d throw one more stinging barb in the their direction.

“And ugly!”

At this point they seemed terrified a little frightened and probably thought I was following them, probably because I sort of was. I was also sort of afraid they were going to start yelling, “STRANGER DANGER! STRANGER DANGER!”, so I thought it best to move on.

Since the sunroof was open, though, I took the opportunity to return to them the old “We’re Number 1!” sign as I motored off.

Keep in mind Sparky was yapping and snarling the entire time, so it was a quite exciting 30-seconds.

Overreaction? Probably. A better man would have smiled and laughed it off. Did I lower myself to their level? More than likely. Do I need to grow up? O.K.

But hey, it made me feel better.

And man, I hate it when people don’t recognize good music.