Paradise California is a working man’s town. People here work; work hard at tough physical jobs. If they don’t work they either run meth labs and get all their skin tattooed, or are retired -- usually from the military. It been this way since I first moved here in 1953 even though I left for 60 years.
As a result Paradise is generally Republican by birth and inclination and experience. Every morning at around 7 am the traffic floods down the Skyway into the moonbat metropolis of Chico to turn on that town by opening the shops and baking the doughnuts and starting the coffee. Still, since Paradise is home to over 26,000 it boasts a Safeway market. And it was to that market I went yesterday in order to pick up some laundry detergent for the laundromat down the road.
Picked up a cart and pushed it to the back of the store. Made a right. Made another right at cleaning aisle and almost ran over a woman who was kneeling down with her back leg fully extended across the aisle.
“Excuse me please,” I said.
“Sorry,” she said as she moved her leg.
I went past her noting a woman in her early 60s knocking on the door of that old age which I currently inhabit. She wore a somewhat sheer flowered pantsuit showing more cleavage than was appropriate for her, her greyed hair was dyed a false red, her fallen face sported brave amounts of rouge.
But it was only a glance and I moved on down the aisle to the far end and the detergents. This put me about 10 yards away from the woman.
At that point the fifth day of my cold kicked in and I had a coughing attack. It was a loud one.
From the far end of the aisle the woman said, “God bless you.”
“Thank you,” I said and turned back to my scanning of the shelves looking for fragrance-free Tide. I thought our pleasant exchange was politely over.
Then, standing at the far end of the aisle and raising her voice to assure all heard her, she said, “I said ‘God Bless You’ even though you probably voted for Trump and have given control of the atomic weapons to a man that will use them to end the world and kill you and your family!”
A few seconds ticked away as I checked to see what planet I had been beamed down on. Or if I had unknowingly donned my MAGA hat, or had ‘666’ tattooed on my forehead in invisible ink.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I can see you voted for Trump like all the rest of the bigots in this town.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know what I mean. You want everyone of color to be enslaved by Trump and the white resistance to be imprisoned. I know what you think. You know what you did. You ALL know what you did!”
People behind her are now avoiding the cleaning aisle and pushing their carts away... slowly. Listening.
In my mind I am counting... slowly, “One potato, two potato, three potato....”
“Admit it. Admit what you’ve done!”
That’s it.
“Listen, lady, old, fat, ugly, alone, and insane is no way for you to go through the rest of your life. Get your head straight and your mouth shut or get out of Paradise. The moonbat colony is twenty miles away down the Skyway. Bitch.”
(Faint laughter comes to my ears from the next aisle over. People pushing their carts behind her have stopped.)
“What did you say? WHAT DID YOU SAY?”
I reach deep into my bottomless mental garbage can of pop cultural references: “Let me put it to you in the immortal words of Jack Nicholson, ‘ Where do they teach you to talk like this? In some Panama City "Sailor wanna hump-hump" bar, or is it getaway day and your last shot at his whiskey? Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here.’ ”
I take my scentless detergent off the shelf and exit to the cashier.
“What was that all about?” she asks.
“Clean up in the cleaning aisle,” I tell her.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at May 26, 2017 11:04 AMGood on yer mate!
Posted by: Jim in Alaska at May 26, 2017 11:18 AMParadise, huh?
That could have been a co-worker. Or two.
But that's life in an elementary school.
JWM
Posted by: jwm at May 26, 2017 11:44 AMYou were kinder than I might have been.
Posted by: ghostsniper at May 26, 2017 1:30 PMWell done! I wish I could have witnessed it. *golf clap
Posted by: Leslie at May 26, 2017 3:02 PMThere's s skit for that, Gerard!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6iqKjPDGWE
As I've pointed out before, if you think that's bad you oughtta get stuck in Sebastopol for a while.
Posted by: Rob De Witt at May 26, 2017 9:21 PMI really enjoyed that. Especially since it was GV that had stand there and deal with it instead of me. Plus, that last rejoinder!
Par excellence!
The old synapses are still firing, by God.
Bravo. Be proud.
That's why, for the last 62 years, I've sent my wife to do the grocery shopping, and any other shopping I can con her into. She can put down people like this graciously. I would probably be in jail when it was over.
Posted by: billH at May 27, 2017 9:10 AMExcellent reply! I am possessed of at least average intelligence, composure and sense of humor but getting close to my shelf life in the Dark Post Obama Ages has given me the inability to respond in a calm, coherent manner to that kind of crap in much the same way that the generation of recently graduated with a liberal arts degree, large mouth bass just can not swim by a popping bug tugged skillfully across the surface of a creek by a human seeking to kill and eat it.
Posted by: Dink Newcomb at May 27, 2017 10:53 AMExcellent reply! I am possessed of at least average intelligence, composure and sense of humor but getting close to the end of my shelf life in the Dark Post Obama Ages has given me the inability to respond in a calm, coherent manner to that kind of crap in much the same way that the current generation of recently graduated with a liberal arts degree, large mouth bass just can not swim by a popping bug tugged skillfully across the surface of a creek by a human seeking to kill and eat it. @#*%, bitch, moan, %^#@#$%, gripe, calumny ....
Posted by: Dink Newcomb at May 27, 2017 11:07 AMHer 'back leg' was across the aisle??? You mean, she had front legs too?
Posted by: Aggie at May 27, 2017 11:18 AMThat there still are such places in California is a blessing.
Posted by: Don Rodrigo at May 27, 2017 3:59 PMThe fourth potato is a bitch.
Posted by: chuck at May 27, 2017 7:25 PMChanneling your inner Eastwood.
"Get off my lawn"
Posted by: foodog at May 27, 2017 10:42 PM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.
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