So, I was looking at DVD's at the now closed Video Gallery in New Brighton. A woman of some years in a wheelchair is talking loud and proud about how girls are easier to raise than boys. Without any hesitation she decides to use me as an example and says: "Don't have boys or they'll end up like this one and start drawing pictures on themselves." I ignored her and went on looking for my movie.
Then, as luck would have it, I end up behind her in line at the checkout. She took this opportunity to exclaim "Let's hurry up and check out. We don't know what this guy behind us is capable of!"
Wow. Now, if she said this with a wink and a smile I would have smiled back. But she didn't. She meant every word.
I'm usually a quick-to-reply kind of person but I was pretty stumped. And even though I felt like strapping her chair to the front of my Chevy Blazer and taking her for a ride down Junction Stretch until she consented to getting a tattoo herself, it doesn't, of course, mean I'm capable of it.
Whatever she actually thought I was capable of - robbing the place, starting a fire, renting Battlefield Earth or kicking her out of her damn chair and having daughter squat on her face to pee - she might have been surprised to know that I'm just a regular guy, with a loving family that I am completely devoted to and, yes, I am adorned with permanent pictures and I adorn others for a living.
We may live in a rather old fashioned place like Beaver County, which I actually think is one of the nicer things about this place, but here's to hoping that intolerance like this continues to be a minor occurance and not a general attitude.
And for what it's worth: my Mom thanks God every day that she raised boys instead of girls.
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