I am with you Leggy. I would just say, in my life experience, in a minor, non life threating situation like this, it rarely works to strike back. Though lord knows I have wanted to many a time, ( and still do on occasion). And on the occasions when I was younger and did strike back, it never ended well.And usually made things 10X worse.
So these days I always try to be a gentleman, try to defuse the situation, not inflame it. As the saying goes you have to pick which hill you want to die on. And your situation is not a hill I would choose.