How to become a true New Yorker- curse out a woman at LaGuardia

In two and a half years of living in NYC (and three years in Chicago prior to that) I've dealt with plenty of long lines, traffic, crowded sidewalks and stores. But I decided long ago that it's a tax of sorts for living in a really cool, culturally-rich location that everyone else wants to be in too. And I credit it with actually making me more patient. In fact, it usually doesn't faze me when someone bumps into me or doesn't hold a door, because I get that people are in a hurry and are often totally oblivious. Instead I try to remember the people who are polite and I usually make over them with a, "Thank you! You are too kind!!" I even told one man who went out of his way to hold the elevator that he was a really good person sprinkling lots of karma in the world.

Well...I guess even the most laid-back person can lose it every now and again as evidenced when my alter ego Sasha Fierce took over last night and I told a woman trying to steal our cab to, "Shut the fuc* up!" Here's how it went down...

My mom and I took my 8-month old son, Jack, to Florida for a wonderful 10-day winter getaway. We landed at LaGuardia with tons of bags, so I decided to rent a "smart carte." Before I put my credit card into the machine, a worker with a giant cart said he would help us for the same price. "Great!" I said, knowing the extra help would be needed with a baby. After he loaded the bags, we headed for the cab line. There wasn't room for the cart, so the worker directing cabs told us to go wait past the cab stand, and he would send the next available SUV or van cab to us so we'd have room. Perfect.

We waited for several minutes while the smaller cabs picked up other passengers. Finally, an SUV pulled up so we started making our way to it. At the same time, an older looking woman darted toward the cab and started getting into it. The cab line guy realized what was happening and told the woman, "I'm sorry, they were here first. This is their cab. We'll get you the next one."

Well, she wasn't having it.

This was clearly a woman who isn't used to waiting. She is, however, used to wearing a full-length fur coat, not thanking the doorman in her Upper East Side building for helping her with her bags and sending her fork back at restaurants because it has spots on it. (Okay, true, I'm making assumptions on all of this based on her bitchy resting face and attitude, but I'm judgmental a very good judge of character.)

We continued loading our bags, but the woman kept bitching about how we cut, how it was her cab, how rude we were, yada yada, and she wouldn't walk away. There were other cabs behind her, but she was not giving up the dream.

I couldn't take it anymore and yelled, "Listen lady, we've been waiting for 10 minutes for a larger cab, so you need to shut the fuc* up and go away!"

She looked absolutely appalled and turned to my mom and said, "Wow, the mouth on that one."

I think she expected my mom to scold me but instead she told the woman, "Well, you brought it on yourself and you really need to go away. Bitc*." (Okay, true, my mom didn't actually cuss, but I think that would have been funny. And it would have totally secured us a mother/daughter guest spot on Jerry Springer.)

The woman kept mouthing off, so I looked her right in the eye and yelled, "You think the mouth was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet!"

Wow, who knew I had it in me?

I looked over and the cart guy was grinning at me ear to ear. I'm sure he's wanted to say the same thing.

The moral of this story: yes, I could have handled the situation better, but how can anyone act like that, especially when a baby is waiting in the cold for a cab? I'm just hoping someone taped it with their cell phone so I can get a gig on the "Real Housewives of New York City." I'm totally ready to take on Ramona.

Days before my Sasha Fierce transformation