Met One, Now I'm Moving On

My grandmother Hodge had a lot of wisdom to impart, but one thing she told me has stood out over the years. She said "In your life you are going to meet a certain number of jackasses. When you do, just say, 'there's one of them', and move along."

I did a stupid thing, to begin with. I left for the grocery store on Sunday afternoon just in time to arrive with the after church crowd. It was wall to wall people, all in a rush and none of them in a mood to be aware of the needs of anyone else.

In the second place, my mood has been pretty sour for several weeks now, not only because of the truckload of work that was dumped on my desk on May 1st, but also because allergies have had my head feeling like one of those Macy's balloons floating above my body.

So I can't say I'm exactly in a forgiving frame of mind these days.

Anyway, as I walked through the door at H.E.B. and began to shop the vegetable aisle, I was startled to have a man brush past me snarling "Lardass!". It was so unexpected, I stopped in my tracks and spun around. We exchanged looks. I realized at that point that his snarl was not directed at me. I'm not sure he realized that he had been heard until he saw my schoolteacher glare. He strode on out the door.

I looked around to see who might have been the intended target. There were several possibilities, including a short woman of the extremely portly persuasion who was slowly choosing vegetables to bag.

Since I spent the next hour waiting for people to shift out of the way so I could shop, I could understand the fellow's frustration. But there was no excuse for his rude behavior. I am as guilty as anybody in slinging rude comments at people. In my head or in the privacy of my car. I try not to make a jackass out of myself by saying them aloud if there's any chance I'll be heard by a complete stranger.

So, I guess the moral of the story is, better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a shithead instead of opening your mouth and removing all doubt.

LSW