stuff

Today I went to my favorite thrift shop. Somebody stop me the next time I decide to go on a Saturday. What WAS I thinking. I somehow got stuck behind this odd grandmother woman who must have said that she had to get Jordan a pair of antlers about 50 million times. This woman had a kid in a stroller and she repeated and repeated everything until I was ready to scream. This is the same thrift store where the hootie owl woman came up to be half a dozen times to show me the hootie owl thing she found for a friend who likes owls. Holly macaroni I wish someone would take the "talk to me' sign off me because there are times that I don't want to talk to people but fear if I am rude I will be condemned forever in hell with antler grandma and hootie howl woman. Then there was Towanda, a black woman with her hair all up in that crinkly hair top of the heade pony teil which was really rather lovely till she stuck a big god damned fake flower into her updo and walked around with a dozen wreathes hanging from her arm like wreathy bangles.
Then while waiting for the husband to come pick me up... he does Starbucks while I do thrift store... some guy started talking to me about the fact that winter was coming. See... I have got to get rid of that sign. I muslim woman came out of the store with her two kids and headed toward her car and that was enough for the guy to start in on how since she was living in America she should dress like and American while stupid me tired to explain that she dresses that way for religious reasons and that was enough for bigoted guy to go off in some crazy tangent about how them people do have the same god as we do and he hates them all and the reason he hates them is because he served in Nam and knows what those people are like.
HUH??? WHAT??? Did someone move Viet Nam and stick it in the middle of the middle east? When did that happen? And did they ask anyone's permission or just tie a tow rope onto Viet Nam and drag it across cambodia and what not, till the steaming jungles were in the middle of the desert. I think someone would have noticed that. Good thing that the husband drove up about then and saved me from opening my mouth and starting a right old hoo haw. How dare that woman, wear her head covering and leave the store with her two very well behaved children in tow? The nerve!
But you know what disturbed me the most. The idea that this stranger took a look at me and decided I was a hater and he felt totally free in sharing his crap with me. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it must be to leave your country for a brand new one, learn a new language and a new alphabet and try to live your life while dressing in a way that always declares that you are an outsider. Even worse when idiots of your national background think killing is the way to get into heaven. Now that's brave.
Yes I cold have told the bigot what an asshole he was but why bother? It certainly isn't going to change his mind and the woman was out of earshot when he started . I just wonder what it is about me to make him share his views with me. Where is the hootie owl woman when you need her?