Character defect for the day: Condescending stance or "how I need to be right and show it...daily"

This defect has contaminated my spiritual progress since my spiritual progress was in its infancy. It's the need to be right and the need to make sure everyone knows I am right, at the expense of someone's self esteem. Why do I feel the need to correct EVERYONE about EVERYTHING they DON'T KNOW ANYTHING about (at least in my, obviously not so humble, opinion). The RV neighbor lady next to me invited us out to dinner on her and her husband's last night on Tybee Island. The RV neighbor had already started to annoy me a few days ago (the one who told me about the annabella houses outside Savannah but not in the city...huh?"you know the annabella houses in the south?" she explains. My condescension began there and I just had to verbalize and "educate": "Oh you mean the antebellum homes?" I clarified. She knows and replied:"yeah...the annabella houses".

In spite of my annoyances, Jeff and I agreed to have dinner with our RV neighbors, and went to Charly's. I didn't share with him my converstation about the annabella houses of the south (on RV neighbor's drive to Kroger's with me). After ordering food, she and I stepped out for a cigarette (because I needed it, and I know, oh I know, how spiritual that is). She kept on telling me I was pretty. I said thank you (because I have learned how to accept a compliment gracefully). Then she started in (after the one compliment): She first told me I am hyper. Wow...she is so insightful. I told her while I did actually use that to my advantage in my career, I have become more able to slow down and relax. To this she says "oh..you were WORSE than this...holy shit!?"...okay...I am learning to bite my tongue. My sponsor would be so happy (until we settled down for the main course, then I just spiritually decompensated). Still outside, she persisted with personal inquisition about my family life. And this is her business why?? I didn't ask about her family. I should have been politely curious. I was not. Then she tells me again, " you are so pretty...Jeff better shape up and get it together...he probably doesn't appreciate a girl like you" HUH?? I must have verbalized, "huh?". She explained, "Oh, he looks like he just walked out of bed with that get up". Oh MY God, I was going to kill her. Really. Truly. I had to interject. You know, on Jeff's behalf. Not at all because I was right and she was wrong. NOT.AT.ALL!! "Soo, actually, he looks very nice and clean...he was working in the RV a lot of today and cleaned up quite nicely as he always does!" Good job wifey, I thought. "Duh!" she remarked. "What?" I did not quite believe my ears. Because, really, I didn't know how 'duh' fit in the context of the conversation. "you know, duh, like yeah right. He wasn't doing anything...I didn't see him all day". Ummm yeah, "Like I said, he was working IN the RV all day; you wouldn't have seen him till he came outside to work on the roof and all". "Oh I see, he was working inside. Okay". Yes. Like I said before. Oh.Holy.HigherPower. Where art thou??????? I had to go inside and join Jeff. Then the fun stuff begins.

At dinner she kept telling us how upscale it was and all. So I dressed up (it was nice to dress up considering I live in shorts and flip flops daily). I dressed up to watch her get drunk and swear non stop at the "up scale" restaurant. "I want to bitch about the tires. I want to bitch about our bad tires. I want to bitch about the bad tires. I want to bitch about the tires". Yeah...I get it..you want to bitch about those damn tires. Seriously, she goes on: "They don't give a shit we have bad tires". Yeah? Really? Then we move on to talk about a boat time-share situation, which she had no solid understanding. "I wouldn't trust anyone to abuse our boat". Well, I tried to explain, "you wouldn't have to worry about that because you wouldn't fully own the boat...it's not YOUR boat per se". To which she responded, "so if someone takes OUR new boat out and ruins/breaks it, then what. I don't want to rent out our boat if anyone can take it." IT'S.NOT.YOUR.BOAT. So in case she wasn't sure about the time share issue, I said "it's like a vacation time share and you only use a portion of it". To which she says "well, duh...I know about that kind of timeshare, but if I had a timeshare boat that was new, it could just break down in the middle of the .....(ocean/water)...If we have a new boat for just me and [husband's name] that wouldn't happen". AAAAAAAAAAARRGH.... and here is my next and last condescending comment of the night: " Sooo kind of like your RV?" I referenced their new RV-NOT a timeshare RV...just for them, the one with the bad tires and a questionable quality of their transmission and hot water heater. ARggh...I know I wayyy over stepped my bounds...Jeff rescued me at some point (from coming off as a completely cold-hearted, intellectually snobby bitch), thankfully.

The dinner finally came to an end and I had not broken any of the TEN commandments, 'specially the one with the word 'kill". Cool. Deep breath and long walk to the AA meeting. Oh and thank GOD for that. I didn't tell Jeff about the outside/smoking convo (I guess he will read it here if he reads this blog), but he explained that I was condescending, but only when I asked...because he is wayyy more spiritually advanced.
YAY for AA and other recovering alcoholics to talk things over with.

So I ask myself: Why and what is even my purpose in "teaching" her about time share boats and "proving" my point and giving her vocab lessons about the estates in the Confederate states?! Oh I don't know...to make myself feel better and smarter. I am pretty sure that worked for a while, but now it just makes me feel nasty and I realized this after this dinner. And that is spiritual progress.

Peace and serenity to all...