vituperation

May 30, 2003

Many thanks to reader Suzy for sending me an Amazon gift certificate for my recent birthday. Reader Suzy, please email me (Amazon didn’t share your email address with me) so’s I can thank you good ‘n proper, please.

“Ugh!” the plump girl sporting the stylish mullet groaned. She stood, belly up to the counter at a local cafe, eyeballing the cheese danish the cashier had just put in front of her. I was getting a cup of vanilla nut coffee, having just finished cleaning kitty cages at a nearby pet store.

It was Monday, it was a holiday, and it was my birthday. Life was good.

Sometimes, I have found, you can classify a person just based on the way they look. Sure, it’s probably wrong to do in today’s politically correct society — stereotyping and all that — but I’d take a bet that most people do it. I’d just stereotyped the girl in front of me, as well as the guy she was with, while they walked across the parking lot ahead of me.

The pale boy — technically a man, since I’d bet both were in their early twenties, but I’m old now so the twenty-somethings all look like kids to me — was tall and very thin, a Jack Sprat to the girl accompanying him. He sported lank hair, wire-frame glasses, and a t-shirt tucked into his Levi’s. On his feet were a pair of sandals of which the Lord would’ve been proud.

New-age hippie, I thought, bringing to mind images of happy peaceniks smoking joints while they hugged trees and discussed the merits of eating vegan.

The girl had very dark black hair, long and flowing in the back and short and spiked on the top. Her skin was an alabaster white even lighter than the boy’s, and a spray of pimples wandered across her cheeks and nose. She wore black horn-rimmed glasses like Buddy Holly, a black shirt, Levi’s, and combat boots. A veritable plethora of earrings decorated the single ear visible to me. Her lip was curled in a perpetual sneer.

Militant feminist, I thought, once again using my super-power of snap judgment. Ornery, too, and probably a troublemaker to boot. Images of screaming flag burners and hordes of NOW marchers filled my head.

Sometimes people just have a look about them, you know?

They stood for a moment at the glass display overlooking the freshly baked goods before stepping to the cash register to order their food. The boy spoke quietly to the girl behind the counter (even right behind them I couldn’t hear what he got) and stepped to the side so the girl could order.

“I want a ham and cheese breakfast sandwich,” she bellowed, loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear, “a cheese danish, and a small cappa-frappa-loopy-latte!”

Given that I frequent this particular establishment only for the coffee and the occasional Friday morning cinnamon roll, I’ve no idea of the real name for the drink, but I suspect it really was something like “cappa-frappa-loopy-latte.”

“Would you like your sandwich on a sliced bagel?” the cashier asked.

From the girl’s response, one might have thought the cashier asked her if she’d ever considered licking one of those sticky-looking diarrhea stains you sometimes see on public toilets. She was aghast at the notion of having her breakfast sandwich on a sliced bagel.

“No!” she screamed, taking a step away from the counter and almost bumping me. She shook her head violently from side to side, punctuating each shake with another negative. “No, no, no, no, no!”

“What would you like your sandwich on?” the cashier asked. She looked a little scared.

The girl in front of me considered this, while the boy she was with took a small step away from her. I’d say he looked embarrassed but I’d be projecting, because I couldn’t see his face.

“A croissant,” the girl finally said, “and can you make sure they put plenty of ham and cheese on it? Last time I was here there wasn’t enough.”

The boy paid and the pair stepped to the side while the cashier went to the display to get a couple of cheese danishes. Or is that danish? Seems I like a read somewhere that the plural of danish is danish, but I could be wrong. Damn foreigners.

I ordered my coffee from a second cashier, paid, and took my cup over to the counter holding carafes of various coffees. While I filled my cup, the cashier put the plates of danish in front of the two. The mulletted girl looked down. Her sneer grew.

“Ugh!” she cried. “I don’t want this! Jesus Christ, there’s hardly any cheese on it! How can you people sell this stuff and not feel bad for ripping your customers off?”

The cashier looked like a deer caught in oncoming headlights. I was hoping the cashier would respond by pointing out that the girl was given the piece of danish she’d just been looking at through the display glass, but she didn’t.

“Can you believe this?” the girl said to the boy, turning. “I’m not eating this. I want my money back.”

This time, I can honestly say the boy did look embarrassed, because I could see his face. He mumbled something to her I couldn’t hear. I suspect he wasn’t reminding her that his money paid for the danish, not the girl’s, and that she therefore couldn’t get “her” money back.

As I left, carrying my coffee, the girl was still loudly bemoaning the amount of cheese on her cheese danish, and proclaiming to all that she was being ripped off.

Sadly, this is the second such incident I’ve witnessed in the last couple of weeks. The first happened when I took the spud to a local cave. A woman on the tour with us took it upon herself to loudly complain the entire time about what a poor job the guide was doing. She told the group (she was in the very back with her husband. Their son was with them, too, but he refused to walk with her) several times that she “didn’t pay eight dollars for a guide who didn’t know anything.” She also told us over and over that she was going to ask for her money back and that we should too.

For the record, the only reason I’d have wanted my money back is because she ruined the tour, not the guide.

Among some of her more notable comments were: at a section of the cave called “The Wishing Well” she cawed that people who had our guide probably wished they were somewhere else, then said she was “just kidding”; that she couldn’t believe the cave hired high school kids to lead the tours; and that the guide should be fired because she was so stupid. Yes, she actually said stupid.

Most everyone else on the tour was quiet, sharing looks with one another and rolling their eyes at the woman, who seemed only concerned about herself. I think we all felt sorry for the guide, who had enough class not to respond to the woman’s taunts. Several times I almost said something to the woman, but didn’t. I was silent in the face of asshattery and I’m still kicking myself for that. Moreover, though, I’m wondering why her husband stayed silent, too.

What the hell is up with people? Since when did we become so self-important that we turned into assholes? Have we forgotten that it is, in fact, possible to be dissatisfied with something, yet still remain civil about it? Is it so hard to be nice to the people around you?

Surely there are still a few decent people left, aren’t there?