Honey vs. Vinegar

A while ago, I was pulled over for nothing more than having the bad judgement to cut off a cop.  See, I was stopped at an intersection.  I had a stop sign.  The perpendicular traffic did not.  I swear I looked both ways and saw no cars.  Unfortunately, there was a bend in the road several yards to my left and, as I stepped on the accelerator and drove out into the intersection, a police cruiser suddenly came around that bend, headed right for my broadside.  His lights and siren were both off but, in hindsight, he must have been moving pretty quickly.

I floored it, in order to get out of his way as quickly as possible, while the officer behind the wheel of the cruiser simultaneously floored his brake pedal and turned on his bull horn.

Now, some of you may sympathize with me.  Some of you may be thinking "he must have been coming around that curve pretty darned fast!  Clearly, this was not your fault, Halmanator!"  Some of you might even have suggested as much to the police officer if you had been in my place, making protests along the lines of "I looked and saw no-one coming!  How fast were you driving, anyway?  You must have been speeding along at a pretty good clip!  I could understand it if you were responding to some kind of emergency dispatch but your lights and siren were both off!  Now, I'm willing to keep this little incident between us, but don't let it happen again ... pig!"

But that's not what I said.  I pulled over once I'd cleared the intersection, rolled down my window, and waited.  Within a few seconds, the cruiser drove up and stopped behind me.  The cop stepped out of his cruiser and sidled up to my driver's door.  Before he could say a word, I gave him my most sheepish smile and said "Well, that was definitely my bad!"

He regarded me silently for a moment and said "Yes it was."  Then he asked for my license and registration, which I promptly produced.  He went back to his cruiser for a few moments, presumably to check my history and look for any outstanding warrants, then came back, handed me back my license and registration and said "I know that curve is pretty close to the intersection but, next time, look more carefully" and, with that, he left.  No ticket.  No fine.  All in all, I'd gotten off easy.

My point here is that, had I been more combative or even belligerent, both my wallet and my demerit point collection would likely have wound up considerably lighter.  My apologetic, if not friendly attitude, probably helped a lot.

A more serious example:  In her book, Completely MAD (A History of the Comic Book and Magazine, author Maria Reidelbach talks about the history of MAD cartoonist Max Brandel, before he joined the magazine:

"A native of Austria, he had just begun a career as a cartoonist when the war broke out; during the Russian occupation of Poland he and his wife were captured by the Germans.  He was imprisoned in concentration camps, where he escaped death by amusing the Russians and the Gestapo with his caricatures of them."

Even in the midst of one of the most hellish institutions in history, Brandel was able to soften the hearts of men who thought nothing of sending whole families to their deaths by simply being likeable and making them laugh.

Then there's my dad.  During his battle with leukemia, he spent a fair bit of time in the hospital, not surprisingly.  The nursing staff always seemed particularly fond of him, again because he was simply a nice guy.  He accepted his sickness and the discomforts that arose from it gracefully, with few complaints, and he was always congenial with the nursing staff, smiling and chatting with them and occasionally expressing his appreciation for the care that they gave him.  When he died, several of them showed up at the funeral home visitations to pay their last respects.

Never underestimate the power of niceness and likeability.