Dinner last evening was a bit of an eye opener for me and I
think for a random stranger that had the guts to confront me and my friends in
a public place.
I say had the guts to
confront, because most people have a tendency to give stink eye or mumble some incomprehensible
shit under their breath when dealing in a social situation that they firmly don’t
agree with. Thus a passive aggressive dance begins in places like restaurants
or supermarkets that result in very little discussion and more than a little
resentment.
Here’s the story.
Last night I had dinner with my two very good friends who happen
to be in a relationship together and also both happen to be teachers. Grade school
teachers. Why is this relevant? Well read on.
We went to a local restaurant (which sells pizza from a Massachusetts
city) and sat down. The cutie boy server took our drink orders and gave us our
menu’s. When he came back he placed our drinks on the table and proceeded to tell
us of the promotion that was going on.
Now I have a problem with 2 kinds selling techniques. One:
Schools, teachers or any other institution which thinks its ok to use children
as a free selling and marketing tool to
guilt parents and family members into buying wrapping paper or popcorn or some
other shit just for a small percentage of the profits.
Two: if I am trapped in your power by my choice of restaurant
I don’t want to be made to feel shamed into donating to a cause that does not
affect me or I don’t believe in.
That said…..
When cutie boy server started in on the spiel about the “Kids
with Cancer” promo that the restaurant was involved in, both I and one of my
friends exclaimed at the same time “No thanks that is not our issue”.
The server obviously having the corporate imperative to explain
the whole campaign that the company was involved in continued cautiously to
finish his rhetoric. To this I replied that both of the men that I was dinning
with have spent more than enough time in the protection of children and this
was really not our issue.
Our dinner proceeded with the usual frivolity. We joked and
laugh and teased the server, who by the way had a huge tattoo on his arm and
when asked about it told us he got it when he got out of rehab.
Time flew, we ate and joked and were inappropriate with each
other as always.
Then it happened.
A small mousy woman
exited the booth behind us and approached our table.
“I didn’t appreciate the joke you boys made and I just
thought you should know” she said. I looked at her and casually responded “Which
one?” because trust me there was more than one beige joke bandied around that
night.
She responded with “The one about donating to the kids with
cancer”.
I think I blinked a few times and then I patronizingly put
my hand on her arm and said “my dear not that it’s any of your business but
this is not my issue, it may be yours but not mine.”
This must have pissed her off because then the rant began. How
she was sensitive to “our” issues and she would never say things about our charities
and it’s not funny to joke about.
This started me thinking about a few things.
One: How does a straight mother of a minor child have one
clue about the issues that affect my “people”?
Two: I wondered what kind of stink would have been made if a
main stream restaurant forcibly told its servers that it had to collect money
for say Pflag or any LGBT cause.
Three: How brave this woman was to confront three articulate
professional gay men on a topic she was passionate about.
Four: how fast this incident turned to name calling and
profanity on both parts.
I’m not going to say this was my finest hour. It clearly was
not. I could have taken the high road and apologized to her for the off color
joke and just gone on with my day but I couldn’t let it go. To be frank I’m a
bit sick of the high road.
While I was impressed with her gumption I was a bit miffed
at the whole idea of some random person being so incensed at me for an issue
which was not directed at her, aimed at her or meant in any way to insult her.
She was clearly eavesdropping on a conversation that was not geared at her but
at the restaurant which started this whole thing in the first place.
My friends being professional child wranglers also look at
this blatant abuse of a situation of power to extort money out of people all in
the name of children as a type of community sponsored abuse. Which it is really.
I guess our option is to walk out of the restaurant, but then if nothing is
said it continues.
This woman’s behavior was equally bad as it didn’t take her
long to fall off her high horse and wallow in the mire that the rest of us live
in. The example that she set for the toddler that she was dragging through this
exchange was anything but class.
As we watched her stamp off and pay her bill as the sounds
of our laughter rang in her ears. I started to think maybe we went to far.
My eyes watched her get in her car start it up from her key
fob, place the child in its restraints and sit in an idling vehicle on the
phone for the next 23 min (yes I timed it).
I guess the environment is not one of her causes.
