You don't owe anyone your participation in their argument.
Was on the train ride from hell last night. We were delayed / stopped on the tracks for a cumulative total of 4+ hours. Woman started freaking out on the train conductor at one point.
She kept screaming at him to stop interrupting her (he was just... responding to her??) and that he was the rudest person she ever met 'and that's saying something' Okay, 20-something yr old girly. Burn. At one point he walked away and she was like, 'exCUSE me I was still screaming at speaking to you."
She kept bringing up her 'life-threatening medical condition.' He asked her, 'do you need medical assistance right now?' and she said no. Okay. I'm not unsympathetic to the frustrations of medical conditions not being taken seriously (check my post history), but... she literally just wanted to scream at him and have him stand there, take it, say nothing back and not leave until she was good and done? Like she's entitled to the ass-kissing of a 5-star resort. Girl, it's AMTRAK. Have you ever been to the gd post office? This is only a slightly better experience than that.
To the point of this post: she must've thought bringing up said 'life-threatening medical condition' (repeatedly) was her trump card, because she was like, "Have YOU ever had a grand mal seizure and spent three minutes on the floor turning blue?!" Like she was betting on that being her 'gotcha' moment so she could scream some more about how he was so rude or whatever.
The guy, who had been deadpanning his one-syllable answers this whole time, without missing a beat, just said, "Yep." And left it at that.
It must've thrown her bc she didn't seem to know how to respond. She was like, 'You have?' and it was pretty clear she didn't believe him but could see how calling him an out and out liar would've been a bad PR move for her (and yes, race was a factor here). He just said "yep" again and didn't elaborate.
Anyway. Can't stop thinking about that moment. "Yep." Glorious. Sorry you're upset but you are not entitled to my mental labor of making you feel better, especially since you're upset that I'm not playing along as your punching bag. You can't press me into the service of arguing with you. Fuck off.