I made a remark to a friend the other day that I'd been thinking it was just a matter of time before a panhandler/bum hauled off and punched me after I denied their pleas for me to give them money. I've become pretty immune to the whole phenomena and at times can come off as downright rude. On my way to work downtown, I'm approached by at least three — sometimes as many as a half dozen — panhandlers on Chicago and Michigan Aves. It gets old. I merely walk past them as though they don't exist anymore. There's a tinge of guilt every time I do it, but I just can't deal with them anymore. If you give these people a second, or even a glance of acknowledgment, they'll beg you all the way down the block.

This evening after work, however, I'm walking by the McDonald's on Chicago Ave. minding my own business and I hear a man screaming quite loudly behind me. He's yelling about how he wants to kick somebody's ass or something. I turn back (he's about 10 feet behind me) to see what the fuss is all about. As I do this we both make eye contact.

"Whatch you looking at Superman? You want some?" He hollers after I had turned my head forward. I can't see who he's looking at, but I'm positive he's talking to me.

He speeds up behind me.

"You want some motherfucker! I'll kick your fucking ass motherfucker!" He screams as hordes of people (tourists, 9-5ers, other bums) are walking to and fro.

He comes even closer, to the point to where he's screaming a foot away from my face. I continue to look forward, and am surprised that nobody I walk past pays even a slight amount of attention to what's happening.

Finally I turned to him.

"Leave me the fuck alone, man," I say lightly.

"Oh, you want some? You want some?" My acknowledgment only seemed to aggravate him more, so I continued to look forward.

As I do this I can see, from the corner of my eye, him lift his left arm like he's going to punch me in the face. This makes me pretty nervous. I could feel my heart start pumping quite a bit faster and I was overcome with that numbing rush of adrenaline you get when somebody tries to pick a fight with you.

I'm started thinking of what I should do if he does take a swing at me.

I could either a) punch him right back, b) grab him by the throat and drag him to the ground, c) push him into Chicago Ave., d) keep walking like nothing happened, or e) stop what I'm doing and holler for somebody to find a cop to arrest him.

After a couple more feet of him screaming obscenities in my face, I turn right down another street and he keeps walking ahead. And screaming. I can hear him yammering after walking a good 50 yards away from him.

As I made my way towards my bike I began to calm down and think about how fucked up that situation could have gotten.

It was one of those moments where you're brought up right to a line of tolerability and you're not sure if you want to cross it, because you have no idea how the other person will respond. Deep down, the whole time, I wanted to tell the guy to fuck off and shove him away from me, but this would have only angered him more, and who knew if he had a knife, or a gun, or was loaded with so much crack that he could have unleashed a Tyson-esque flurry of jabs on me before I even knew what happened.

So here's a lesson to all you other urban dwellers out there: If some random stranger ever fucks with you on the street, the best way to get them to leave you alone is to ignore them.