Last week the wife and I spent some time in Philadelphia, met some real nice people, went to a bar that’s been in business for over a century, a real nice time. We stayed in a major hotel, whose name I wouldn’t get involved in this. I was down in the lobby killing some time when this family walked in. They were either Swedish or Norwegian, weren’t speaking English to each other and the mother and oldest son just had that Viking look.

After one glance at the mangina father I decided to conduct a James LaFond social experiment. This guy was that narrow-shouldered, liberal, hipster type—you could just tell.

The little girl, maybe seven, was cute as could be.

The little boy, maybe eight, was a mini me version of dad.

The oldest son, probably fourteen, was obviously rebelling against dad, because he had been lifting weights. He could have thrown his dad across the room, looked like a Viking. I wouldn’t have wanted to tangle with him.

The mother was just flat-out gorgeous, a beautiful woman, perfect in every way. When she walked over by me to check out the brochure rack for the tourists, that’s when I decided to conduct my little social experiment.

What I was doing was a dick move, even though I had the best intentions.

As some would say, being a man of science has its burdens. I decided that if I got called on this I was going to apologize up and down and even talk dad up to his wife and kids, letting him know that he had every right to put his foot in my ass, that I was totally out of line.

His wife was fairly oblivious to me. She knew I was checking her out—they all know, but probably not the extent of it, as she bent over sorting through those tourist pamphlets. But from the father’s vantage I was totally blatant, turning my head to look down at her ass, then doing a double take and feasting my eyes—even peeking around to get a better look at the titties. I was blatant. The idea, of course, was to see if anybody made any objection. These are aggression signals. Before the dindus and the Muslims go about raping people, this is how they act.

This went on for maybe a half a minute and what happened is the one thing that I never would have guessed in a million years. Her husband looked right at me, then gathered their kids up and hustled them out of the lobby, leaving his wife alone with me!

I stopped right then, never talked to her, had no designs on her—my wife was right upstairs. So I didn’t even want to have a conversation with this woman. But her husband, after a strange man showed a blatant and disrespectful interest in his wife, just abandoned her! It was a strange feeling. I would have felt much better if the fourteen-year-old Viking would have walked over and punched me. Hell, I would have shook his hand. But what the father did was just unfathomable.

A Fighter’s View of Predatory Aggression: The Forever Autumn Press Edition