posted on Sep, 19 2008 @ 04:15 AM
I’ve always treated the poor with respect; I’ve opened doors for them, I’ve slowed my vehicle for them, I’ve moved my shopping cart out of
the way for them, even as they’ve waddled past me and budged in front of me time and again, but NO MORE, not after today! Why can they never learn
from my example? Why must they always confuse politeness with weakness? Why must they always be ten thoughts behind me in nearly every matter? Now
don’t go ape here - I’m not claiming to be some beaming intellectual, but there’s a certain class of people I’m starting to lose my ability to
communicate with, and they all seem to shop at Wal-Mart and make less than $100k per year.
I’ve always felt guilty shopping at Wal-Mart - as I imagine they probably beat their workers, and because the quality of goods are so pathetic.
Still, I’ve done it, mostly out of necessity, as I too am poor. Even so, I refuse to believe I belong to the same pecking order as these primates,
nor will I shop in this store again PERIOD! After tonight, I’m convinced, God must be playing ‘Trading Places’ with me, and I need to find
(metaphorically) the Eddie Murphy whose stolen my real life.
Anyway, the toilets in this Wal-Mart are filthy, and I suspect many of the wild-boars who use them don’t even wipe. And although my daughter is tall
for being nine, she’s still obviously a child, but that doesn’t seem to stop nearly every male customer and worker at Wal-Mart from giving her
seriously inappropriate looks. One guy about 23 with baggy pants and a wife beater shirt, actually turned toward her and said “yee-yeah,” looking
her from top to bottom, sounding just like the guy who propositioned the hooker in the movie ‘Idiocracy.’ But unlike the hooker, my daughter was
not dressed provocatively and she is nine.
To top it all off, as I politely moved aside for, four, thuggish young men and their filthy pirate of a mother (who selfishly clogged the entire
aisle), one of them had the impudence to punch his own hand, as if his hand somehow represented my face. All because he interpreted my kind gesture
as weakness. So I look back at this kid who’s about 20 with a look that screamed “I could take this foot of mine and kick your mothers head clean
off if I so decided.” Then his crew, or brothers or whoever picked-up on my angry vibes, and started giving me this look right back, a look that
seemed to say “What’s with all that cheap 1980’s gel in your hair? What’s with the crazy beard, Holmes? (admittedly, it is stupid, hee-hee)
You think you are somebody? You think you’re a superstar? You want some pain? You look like the kind of guy that rolls in a WindStar!” So I do
one of those fake smiles that just drops, and I fire back my own glare that says - “I got the Windstar for free you bag-of-excrement, and tell that
sea-hag of a mother of yours to shave her back, and if you don’t like the beard come rub it off, besides I could beat the snot out of each of you,
at least individually, except for maybe the really tall guy, and even if I couldn’t, I’m sure I could say something very, very cruel to him,
something that would forever wound him and follow him for the rest of his primate life.” Then I immediately looked down at the thousand dimples
mixed-about in a fat roll on his mother’s tree-trunk of a leg, and they slinked off in shame.
Anyway, it wasn’t these people in particular that changed my mind on poor people. It’s been a series of events over a period of time. Poor people
never yield for kids in the crosswalks, they rarely appreciate anything you do for them, and they get combative when they feel insecure and then
blame you. I don’t want the stress of dealing with them anymore, so down with shopping at Wal-Mart! Down with hanging around poor people and being
polite to them (I’m generalizing, I’m sure there are some nice ones I‘ll be polite to, but I’ve only met a few so far.) This is not to say all
rich, people are great, but I think proportionally, there are many more nice, rich people than poor people. Besides, I’ve had some terrific
conversations lately with some really nice, rich, people on a range of things like - art in antiquity, literature, the birth of the modern orchestra.
. . I rarely talk to poor people about anything fun, they just burp and fart. It’s not strictly academia, many rich people have had the opportunity
to see so much more than poor people and thus have more to talk about, and they appreciate good manners. Even if in the future I go homeless and lose
everything, I will not share my cardboard box with, or smoke cigarettes with the other homeless people.
Well that concludes my rant for this month. For the record, I’m sure I’ll probably pop into a dollar store, or a target now and again, at least
until I figure out how to take over the world by next year.
Note: Do not mistake my lack of response to your comments as weakness. I’m just probably doing something else for a time. But I would appreciate if
you could just let this post slip off into the abyss without adding anything.