Friday, November 03, 2006

There's a new insult in town

I had a whole lot more to say about this, but one of the tiny little men in my computer hates me.
And ~ ~ ~ poof! ~ ~ ~ the words were gone!


Not too long ago, I was making another absolutely necessary stop at the Trader Joe*s in downtown Santa Cruz. My friend (the Boss of Seattle) was visiting and we were shopping for dinner, extolling the virtues of what a child-friendly town this is, how much there is to do with children here, how lucky (am I) to live here!
We gathered up our mass of children (totalling five) and the groceries and made for the parking lot. Julia had a car there but all the kids wanted to ride in my van (because it is just so cool), so we loaded them in with the groceries. Predictably, the baby started to fuss. Because, as most parents know, the engine must be running and the car must be in motion in order to bribe a baby into being strapped into a restraining bucket.
So I hurriedly began checking the seatbelts, closing the doors. Meanwhile, a car pulled into the space in front of mine and its driver began ranting at me, gesturing, etc. It was difficult to hear him over the ramping up of the baby's fuss and my increasing need to put the key into the ignition immediately. But he solved that by getting in my face.
Apparently he was upset over the shopping cart. The one that was in the (ample) space between my front passenger side bumper and the parking space next to me. He shouted, "What is WRONG with you LADY? You can't put a cart away? JESUS are you so RUDE (!) and insensitive that you can't put a fucking grocery cart away?"
I looked at the cart, and back at him, and said, "Well, I am not going to leave a carload of LIVE CHILDREN here just to put back a grocery cart. Really. Just back off. It is fine there."
And he continued to make me his mission of the day by steadfastly maintaining his diatribe,
"What if someone else wants to park there? You people are so goddam rude!"
I wasn't sure what he meant by that, but a young woman had pulled into the space in question, so I tapped on her window. "Is this cart in your way?"
She was talking on her cell phone - she glanced at the cart, shook her head and smiled.
I looked smugly at Angry Guy and said loudly, "SEE? IT'S FINE, JUST FINE! EVERYTHING IS OKAY!" and started to get into the van. He continued shouting at me.
Finally I just said ,"Listen dude, I don't know where you think you are, but this is SANTA CRUZ! Just CHILL! You need to mellow out!"
Well, this didn't help, because he started shrieking, "I am FROM HERE! YOU PEOPLE are just ruining everyone else's scene! I am FROM HERE! This is MY HOME!"
Wow. It finally dawned on me what he was trying to say. My people and I were somehow wrecking this guy's scene. In the parking lot.
I couldn't stand it any longer, I took the bait.
"WHAT people would you be talking about, angry guy?"

"YOU BREEDERS! YOU FUCKING BREEDERS!"

Well, he's got me there. On both counts.
I am a fucking breeder. That is a well known fact.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought Santa Cruz was the home of happy, peace-loving hippies! Someone seriously harshed that guy's buzz or something. And besides, unless that man was the product of immaculate conception, wasn't his MOTHER a "breeder"? Good for you for staying calm and not throwing something heavy at him.

Green Kitchen said...

I thought that to be more of a San Francisco insult. I was born in Santa Cruz and have never heard that kind of nonsense. I was expecting the guy's punchline to be something about tech-money Valleys running the house prices up, which is a coomon locals rant.