I was at the Big Stupid Mall (aka the West Edmonton), and managed to get myself a great parking space by pure chance when somebody left as I was driving by, and it being a super busy day, this was a stroke of good luck. I pretty much pulled in and found a spot almost immediately. The guy in front of me's face was pretty priceless, because he realized that if he was a couple seconds later, he would have gotten the spot I did. Anyways, I get out of the truck and there's an older lady in her car stuck waiting at the intersection for cars to pass so she can leave, but behind her is some jackass in a big truck who's yelling at her out of his window and honking his horn and just generally being an angry motherfucker. The lady looked terrified, and I felt bad for her and was worried that if she was pressured enough, she might go into traffic before it was safe, so I decided to say something.
It was a while ago, so I may be paraphrasing a lot of this. It's as accurate as I remember.
I approached the man's truck, and asked him, "Where do you want her to go, exactly?"
"I want her to fucking move. She's taking too goddamn long." he's pretty much still shouting at me, his wife looks pretty embarrassed. I didn't really look at the kids in the back.
"She can't go anywhere until the traffic clears, buddy. Lay off the horn and be patient, you both just pulled up and it's not safe for her to pull out. It's really busy today."
The guy gives me a death glare and pretty much is turning his attention to me. "It's not your fucking problem, you want to start something?"
"No, I want you to calm the fuck down. You've got issues, man." at this point, I walk away and the friend I was with worriedly told me that he was getting out of the car. I didn't bother turning around, I didn't want to start a fight, and the guy would have to be a real idiot to try to pick a fight with a guy who's half his weight with literally dozens of witnesses.
The guy starts yelling all sorts of obscenities at me, and that he's going to teach me a fucking lesson or something. I just kind of turn over my shoulder, look at him, and call back, "What, do you beat your wife too?"
His wife is freaking out in the passenger seat, trying to get the guy to calm down. At this point, the old lady had managed to drive away safely and the guy was wasting more of his apparently super precious time looking for a fight or to be a tough guy. I was ready to fight, if I had to; It wasn't a case of if I knew I was going to win, but I was sticking up for somebody who couldn't stick up for themselves, and I didn't flinch from it. I really felt proud of myself after that, that I was willing to put myself at potential risk because I felt what he was doing was wrong. Anyways, I guess his wife convinced him it wasn't worth it, and he gets back in the truck and drives off. A family that was near me kind of looks at me and asks what that was all about, and I explain what the guy was doing. The guy just looks at me, shakes his head, and says, "Man, what a dick."
Indeed.
The fact I'm not a very confrontational guy and that I didn't stutter over my words and was ready to do what I had to do was something I was glad I still have in me to react when the time comes. I was shaking for a good half-hour after that, but man, I rarely felt better about myself.