FGS: Who do you think you are?

In the summer of 2018, I went to NYC to go to The Bronx, where my mom grew up, and put some things to rest. She spent a lot of years trying to turn me into something I wasn't and I wanted to let her know how that turned out. She'd been dead 35 years but I wanted to finally close the book on her in the place it all started. There was a moment during that trip when I found myself in the food court of a grocery store with a handful of people I'd met through the friend I was staying with. I was just about to start eating when Doris, a woman I'd known three days, started yelling at Sharice, a woman I'd known two days. Doris was berating Sharice for not going to enough Overeaters Anonymous meetings. Sharice was a single mom with a couple kids and a full-time job. She could only make it to one meeting a week. But that wasn't enough for Doris. I listened to her lay into Sharice for about a minute and half until I couldn't take it anymore. I know what it's like to have to go to a 12-step meeting. I know what it's like to be a single parent who doesn't have the time or energy to take care of himself. Most of all, I know what it's like to be humiliated in public and too scared to fight back because that might make it worse. I shot out of my chair and stepped up to Doris. I said everything I wish I'd said to every bully, jock, and meathead who knocked me down or made me the butt of a joke. I laid into her until she turned away and mumbled an apology. Then I went back to my clam chowder and forgot about it. Almost. Every now and then, over the years, I'd remember that time and wonder who it was that made such a scene in public because he couldn't watch someone being humiliated. A couple years ago, the friend I was staying with that week said her friends still talked about "that time in Whole Foods when that guy stood up to Doris." Hearing that was one of the proudest moments of my life. One of the reasons I went back to New York was to show my mom that I finally had the…