Being A Jerk Is In Her Nature

There is a nature preserve near my house with a path all around a lake and a floating bridge across one section of it. For a long time, it was made of wood, but in the past few years, it has been replaced with a man-made material. It is constructed of many separate sections to accommodate for shifts in water level, with ramped metal connections in between.

One day, when I’m walking the loop, I decide to take a picture of a duck that is standing no more than two feet from me, completely chill with my presence. I hear someone approaching on the bridge — the connectors unfortunately make a lot of noise when stepped on — think nothing of it, and keep snapping away.

Then, the approaching woman addresses me.

Woman: “The kids must love this, huh?”

Me: *Smiling* “Yeah, they—”

The woman SLAMS her foot on the next metal connector.

Woman: “Such a nice sound, isn’t it?”

I just stare at her, shocked, as she walks to the next one.

Woman: “Coming out here to enjoy the nature and—” *SLAM* “—scaring all the birds away!” *SLAM* “It’s just so nice, isn’t it?” *SLAM*

She proceeded to stomp on every single connector for the entire rest of the bridge, raising her knee to hip-height each time for maximum stompage, repeating her complaints to every single group on the bridge, some of which included small children that never made a peep.

Eventually, she rounded a corner behind some brush, but even a hundred feet away, I could still hear her stomping and complaining all the way back to land.

Relieved to know someone was setting such a good example for the next generation as to how they should act in nature, I turned back to my duck. For some reason, she’d flown away. How odd.