I am fuming right now.
It’s not because it’s Monday, and it’s not because I had to get the tire on my car patched, nor is it the fact that I’m still recovering from my last little episode of Gout.
The incident happened on the way home. It just so happens that my main man, Pootipottamus B. Rex, and his Mother, the Boogs, are a tad under the weather. Nothing major, just a lower gastrointestinal bug or thingy, One of those things that kind of require you to be “nearer my heart to thee” to the facilities, as it were..Ahem. Oh yeah and the Pottamus has a snotty nose, cough, watery eyes, etc.
Being the loyal “Tah” and Dad that I am, I stopped off at the CVS drugstore to get a few things: Some pink stuff, cough drops, and a couple packs of gum (Himself likes gum) and a couple of Ginger Ales for the Boogs.
That’s when it happened.
Another customer in the place, a woman, and obviously ignorant beyond description, comes up to me and says (allow me a moment here to take a cleansing breath):
“You must be from the North, buying Ginger ale.”
(Long pregnant pause to allow the words to sink in..)
“EX-CUUUUUSSSE ME?!?” I replied.
“You must be from the North- Nobody buys Ginger Ale here” or something to that effect. By this time my blood pressure was rising and my head spinning and ears are ringing. No way in hell she just said that to me---and not just once but said it twice.
As the young girls say while doing the chicken head, “OH-NO-YOU-JUS-DID-ENT!!
“Madame”, I replied, raising my voice to the right amount of decibels so not only could the checkout girls hear it but also the ladies back in aisle 11 (Incontinence, laxative, and antacid) could hear it as well---“I have NEVER EVER been accused of anything so DASTARDLY in my entire life--!! I was still in shock, and my face turning red. She looked at me and tried to justify her mis-aligned perception, and she may have mentioned something about what folks in Michigan drink. Quite frankly it’s all a blur and I responded once more:
“Maam, I drink CO-COLAS. I am from the South, I am a Macon boy and we drink Co-Colas down here, even if they have “DR. Pepper” or “Orange Crush” labels on the bottle, and furthermore, I have been accused of a lot of things, some of them unmentionable, but I have NEVER, EVER been accused of being a Northerner.”
Who in the H-E-double- hockey-sticks did this woman (who was nattily dressed by the way and It just so happens there was another lady in the store who saw the way she was dressed and gave her a good going over with her eyeballs when she came traipsing her big ol’ butt in the place like gangbusters and very unladylike I might add) think she was to number one, start up a conversation with me, and secondly, accuse me of being a foreigner? I wasn’t raised thinking that it’s ok to beat on women, but I’m telling you people, this woman could be a testament to wife beating.
Clearing my throat, and becoming still louder, I continued.
“As an addendum, Madame, I will have you know that Ginger Ale is a staple of the Southern medicine cabinet. To three parts ginger ale one normally adds one part black and white movie and one part Grandmas couch and within a 12-24 hour period one is as good as new.”
I was seething. I was at a crossroads. I could continue to have “conversation” with this heathen, or I could grab my stuff and take the high road and exit the premises. I must be getting old, because I chose the latter.
It is times like this that I would love to have a tattoo on my person someplace (in this case my buttocks) that proclaims “Forget, Hell”, or “American by Birth, Southern by the Grace of God” that I could “whip out” and show her that would have made her swallow her snuff or perhaps soil herself. She deserved to do both.
I am back home now, my blood pressure almost back to normal and my two sick ones are getting better by the minute. The Pottamus will be as wide open as a peanut hull before bed and the Booger has casually sipped on her Ginger ale. My wife, god love her, has soothed my savage Southern Beast and told me it would be ok, that some folks are alive only because it’s against the law to kill em. She said to forget about it.
Forget, Hell.
It’s not because it’s Monday, and it’s not because I had to get the tire on my car patched, nor is it the fact that I’m still recovering from my last little episode of Gout.
The incident happened on the way home. It just so happens that my main man, Pootipottamus B. Rex, and his Mother, the Boogs, are a tad under the weather. Nothing major, just a lower gastrointestinal bug or thingy, One of those things that kind of require you to be “nearer my heart to thee” to the facilities, as it were..Ahem. Oh yeah and the Pottamus has a snotty nose, cough, watery eyes, etc.
Being the loyal “Tah” and Dad that I am, I stopped off at the CVS drugstore to get a few things: Some pink stuff, cough drops, and a couple packs of gum (Himself likes gum) and a couple of Ginger Ales for the Boogs.
That’s when it happened.
Another customer in the place, a woman, and obviously ignorant beyond description, comes up to me and says (allow me a moment here to take a cleansing breath):
“You must be from the North, buying Ginger ale.”
(Long pregnant pause to allow the words to sink in..)
“EX-CUUUUUSSSE ME?!?” I replied.
“You must be from the North- Nobody buys Ginger Ale here” or something to that effect. By this time my blood pressure was rising and my head spinning and ears are ringing. No way in hell she just said that to me---and not just once but said it twice.
As the young girls say while doing the chicken head, “OH-NO-YOU-JUS-DID-ENT!!
“Madame”, I replied, raising my voice to the right amount of decibels so not only could the checkout girls hear it but also the ladies back in aisle 11 (Incontinence, laxative, and antacid) could hear it as well---“I have NEVER EVER been accused of anything so DASTARDLY in my entire life--!! I was still in shock, and my face turning red. She looked at me and tried to justify her mis-aligned perception, and she may have mentioned something about what folks in Michigan drink. Quite frankly it’s all a blur and I responded once more:
“Maam, I drink CO-COLAS. I am from the South, I am a Macon boy and we drink Co-Colas down here, even if they have “DR. Pepper” or “Orange Crush” labels on the bottle, and furthermore, I have been accused of a lot of things, some of them unmentionable, but I have NEVER, EVER been accused of being a Northerner.”
Who in the H-E-double- hockey-sticks did this woman (who was nattily dressed by the way and It just so happens there was another lady in the store who saw the way she was dressed and gave her a good going over with her eyeballs when she came traipsing her big ol’ butt in the place like gangbusters and very unladylike I might add) think she was to number one, start up a conversation with me, and secondly, accuse me of being a foreigner? I wasn’t raised thinking that it’s ok to beat on women, but I’m telling you people, this woman could be a testament to wife beating.
Clearing my throat, and becoming still louder, I continued.
“As an addendum, Madame, I will have you know that Ginger Ale is a staple of the Southern medicine cabinet. To three parts ginger ale one normally adds one part black and white movie and one part Grandmas couch and within a 12-24 hour period one is as good as new.”
I was seething. I was at a crossroads. I could continue to have “conversation” with this heathen, or I could grab my stuff and take the high road and exit the premises. I must be getting old, because I chose the latter.
It is times like this that I would love to have a tattoo on my person someplace (in this case my buttocks) that proclaims “Forget, Hell”, or “American by Birth, Southern by the Grace of God” that I could “whip out” and show her that would have made her swallow her snuff or perhaps soil herself. She deserved to do both.
I am back home now, my blood pressure almost back to normal and my two sick ones are getting better by the minute. The Pottamus will be as wide open as a peanut hull before bed and the Booger has casually sipped on her Ginger ale. My wife, god love her, has soothed my savage Southern Beast and told me it would be ok, that some folks are alive only because it’s against the law to kill em. She said to forget about it.
Forget, Hell.
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