Common superstition holds that bad (and good) things come in threes. So when, in one evening, two back-to-back clients sought advice about how to respond to unforeseen personal attacks after I also had been verbally accosted earlier that day, I knew I had to address the issue in my column.
One client had been the target of a rant from a normally agreeable co-worker; the other by an old friend. My antagonist had been a usually friendly neighbor who hurled insults and accusations at me when, while my attention was diverted, my dog chose to mark my neighbor’s sidewalk garden.
