The interaction described in this blog was actually worse than I have made out here but I just don’t have the energy to be sufficiently outraged right now. (Also at a certain point I simply quit listening.) So this watered-down version will have to do.
Right now I have a half marathon to train for which has been difficult considering that the weather has made Tuesday, my long run day, the day that it wants to express itself through snow and rain and polar vortexes. I also have an article to write for an online magazine thing that I have known about for months and yet only just started because I love to procrastinate. It is due on Saturday. And I have to work tonight until 4am and I am going to visit my aunts in the Poconos for the weekend. Obviously, all of this means that this is the perfect time for me to write a blog.
As it turns out, the weather doesn’t only like to arrive on my long run days, it also likes to rear its ugly head during my shifts. I was working during the recent snow storm AND the night the polar vortex…vortexed. My bar has high ceilings and not well reinforced windows and doors, so it gets a bit nippy in there when it’s cold out and there isn’t enough body heat to warm the room (AKA when I have barely any customers). So, my bosses, being Nice People, texted me on Monday afternoon to tell me that if it was super slow and also insanely cold I could close early. It was both of those things and so I did but not before I had a very annoying conversation with a customer who before I could care less about but now I actually think is a dipshit.
Okay, that’s not exactly accurate. I started thinking he was a dipshit about a month ago when my boss told me that he had pulled her aside and said that he was very upset because he drinks at the bar all the time and never gets a buyback.
……… <—- Those dots refer to what happened in my brain after she told me that.
In case you forgot about how fucked it is to ask for a buyback, I refer you to my first tip on how to properly drink in a bar. Anyway, he went on about how he owns a business and yadda yadda yadda he is a good customer and he doesn’t really care but he just felt like he should say something. Well, here’s the thing about that. Dude doesn’t ever really talk to us, he’s a little snippy, he generally only has three drinks and when I buy someone a drink I generally do their fourth, and actually I HAVE given him buybacks. At least 1/2 dozen times. Just out of courtesy because he comes in often. Obviously he just never noticed despite the fact that when I give buybacks I always say “I got that one for you.” So, whatever. He is never getting another buyback because obviously he doesn’t appreciate it. So, resulting from that conversation I thought he was sort of a dipshit. But then he came in on Monday feeling chatty and now I can never look at him the same.
This past Monday was the Auburn vs FSU football game for some championship or another. Honestly, I don’t really know from football. It involved a lot of someone passing the ball and then observers thinking one team was going to win then all of a sudden someone got the ball and ran for a really long time and TOUCHDOWN! Anyway, after the game ended and all my other customers cleared out except for this one guy he asked me what I thought about the game. I told him I didn’t really think much about it at all except that I had a hard time getting behind an FSU win considering Jameis Winston was the star quarterback and that watching him get interviewed on TV after the win, when he was never interviewed after he was accused of raping a classmate, made me kind of sick. I know, I know, I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have just kept my mouth shut and just said I could care less about college football. I should have because I know all too well that there are people sneaking around among us who immediately assume that every single rape accusation against a beloved sports figure or a respected businessman/politician is clearly bullshit, or that the woman’s sexual history made a rape impossible. Obviously the first thing that he brought up, the first thing that all fucking people bring up, is that false rape allegation against the Duke lacrosse team back in 2006. Seriously, as if it wasn’t hard enough for women already, Crystal Gail Mangum had to go and give people a well-publicized example of how sinister women are. When he brought that story up I was pretty sure I was in for it. I told him that false rape accusations are incredibly rare and although I feel badly that those three lacrosse players got caught up in that whole thing and had their names smeared the result has not been for me to assume that every subsequent rape accusation I hear about is bullshit. He then asked me if I was a feminist. He said the word feminist as if he had just accidentally eaten his own feces. I said that I was. He then went into a whole long diatribe about how he thinks feminism is bullshit because he hates that women think they are equal to men and blah blah blah. He was SO mad about the word “equal.” So I said in my best ‘I am trying not to poke you in the eye with this drink straw’ voice,
“Listen, do I understand that men and women have different physical qualities? Yes. Does that mean that I don’t think that men and women should be treated equally under the law? Should have access to the same opportunities? Should be equally respected within society? Should be held to the same standards of humanity? No. Me having a vagina and you having a penis does not mean that I should somehow be considered lesser by the law or society or anything.”
That didn’t really do the trick. He kept spitting the word “equal” at me and making “what about the men” type comments. I started reorganizing the napkin caddy. Sometimes, people are so bullheaded that is just isn’t worth it. Sometimes, you would just rather close the bar and tell your friend the new cheesy joke your dad texted you that very morning.
What does the baby computer call its father?
Data.
Happy Thursday, everyone. Now it’s back to writing or running or procrastinating. Here’s to hoping I don’t get anymore visits from buyback-requesting men’s rights activists.
franklyrebekah 