I'll hit a woman if the circumstances warrant, no problem. In fact, I punched a 50-some year old woman in the face just last week. Looking back on the situation, the only regret I have is that I didn't hit harder. Much harder.

I am not a violent person. Prior to this incident, I hadn't been in a fist fight in 30 years.

It was weird. Here's the gist. I live in Shanghai with my wife and two girls (4y.o and 6y.o.). In early February, we adopted a pair of cats through a local rescue organization. The Chinese woman from whom we adopted these cats turned out to be a total nutcase. A few days after we adopted the cats, this woman starts showing up unannounced at our door demanding that we move the cats' food bowls, and rearrange our furniture for the cats' safety and comfort. I refuse, but she keeps coming back. She starts trying to take the cats back. Four times in two weeks. The last time, she brought three friends (two other old ladies and a younger dude) with her and they tried to force their way into our apartment. I struggled to hold them off at the door while our helper called the police. Four against one, I felt myself losing ground, so in a last ditch effort to prevent these wackos from getting inside my apartment (my kids were home at the time), I swung at this woman and connected with the side of her head, then threw a couple of elbows at her cohorts. With my wife's help, I managed to shut the door against these would-be home invaders. They tried several times to kick our door down, and might have succeeded if I had not put my full weight against the door. The police arrived after 20 minutes or so, and were of no help whatsoever. The police forced my wife and I to go to the local station to "answer questions," while these home invaders were allowed to walk away scot-free.

After this, my wife and I decided to let this crazy woman take the cats back. It crushed us to do so, but our top priority is our kids' safety, and we realized that this woman would never back down, and that the police were never going to be on our side.

I know it is not right, but I sometimes imagine that instead of punching and pushing her back, I had dragged this fucking woman into my apartment and stomped on her face until she stopped moving forever....