The Plan

Actual conversation from a convenience store this afternoon: 

Old Lady: (referring to whatever random beef jerky-type snack I was buying*) What flavor is ‘Original’? 

Me: I guess I’ll find out. 

Old Lady: (reading label) ‘Sausage with pork and chicken.’ What else could you ask for? 

Me: I imagine they all taste pretty much the same by the time they reach the stick.  Guy Behind Me: Heh, yeah, they all come out of the same grinder. 

Me: Sure, throw in somebody’s thumb, a little rat…. 

GBM: Some cockroaches! 

Me: Yeah.  GBM: If we get a Mexican mayor, we’ll all be eating like that anyway, so might as well get started early! 

Me: Unh. 

Beyond a sort of general ‘the seas will run red with blood’ sort of racism, I’m not entirely sure what his point was. 

*Incidentally, I REALLY hate people talking about my food either right before or as I eat it. Major pet peeve. I don’t need your commentary on something I’m about to put in my mouth unless it’s attached to you, and even then simple directions will suffice.   ****************************************** 

I spend a lot of time out and about, as it were, and I’m getting really tired of the guys who Have Something To Say, and need to say it randomly and at 125 decibels. They’re all over, although, like seagulls, they’re concentrated in areas with a lot of foot traffic (i.e., the Promenade, Venice Beach, etc.) I realize that many of these people have legitimate mental and/or emotional conditions, so I’ll attempt to be sensitive to that. I really need these guys to shut the hell up. I think that part of the reason it bugs me personally so much is that I like to argue and debate, so there’s always a little part of me that wants to respond in kind, which could never end well.  Crazy Guy: Somebody stole my legs!  Me: That’s ridiculous!

Or, even worse:

Me: Oh yeah? Show me the stitches!

 

Sane behavior shouldn’t be defined as simply the point where insane behavior ends. It would be kind of nice if people who knew what they were talking about started doing the same thing. For example, it would be pretty cool to see someone leap out at a bunch of tourists on Broadway and 3rd and yell “A free market economy is healthier when certain noncompetitive practices are legislated against, as in the penalizing of the artificial creation of high barriers to entry to protect a monopoly! Yargh!”

The ones who make me angry are the ones who scream racist stuff into the world. Again, I know this behavior is the result of real problems, but what can I say? I’m only human, and it pisses me off. When I hear “You stupid [insert epithet here] You stay away from me!”, what I want to say, in the dark pit of my soul, is: “Listen - nobody cares about you. I’ve called the county to remove things like you, and they came fast. Shut. Up.” But I don’t.

I don’t because, at the end of the day, it isn’t their fault, it’s ours. I know it would be mean (albeit funny) to respond like I suggested above, but it’s not exactly compassionate for everybody to just walk on by and pretend the person isn’t there and isn’t in serious trouble.

At the end of the day, I have no idea what the solution is here.

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 17th, 2006 at 1:53 pm and is filed under People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.