Monday, April 30, 2012

What an asshole


 'How are you?' asked the barista of the man behind me.
'I'm still waiting to be served so you tell me' he angrily replied. He'd been waiting no longer than eight seconds, I'd been there about eight seconds and I was there first, and my transaction was only at the midpoint, hence his agonizing wait.

He decided the wait was long enough however and began to describe what he wanted out loud just assuming they were writing it down. I'm not a coffee connoisseur but it should not need a long lecture to describe how you want your coffee. Especially at a Starbucks.  

I wasn't listening as I was too focused on hating him with my mind. He was a middle aged man, with salt and pepper hair partly covered with a tiny hat, and he wore clothes that were clearly chosen to be stylish yet quirky. This was a man who wanted to be noticed, and if you want to be noticed and are also rude then surely that means you want people to know you are rude? I did hear the tone of his request, and it was far from jovial and I did hear his tag line as he went to walk away - 'I'll be right back but you better use warm milk, you got that'

I went and took a seat and he returned with a pile of magazines, all gay themed, much of it porn. This was in a big chain bookstore and I know the big chains allow people to read like it’s a library, but I have a particular dislike for those who take too much advantage of this. It doesn't mean trash the magazines, rip pages out if you want like I have seen done, or break the spine of books, rendering them 'used' so those who end up paying for them don't get a clean product, and it doesn’t mean read the porn in front of strangers, but I already knew this was the type of guy who didn't give a shit.

It turned out that he had previously left a magazine that he didn't own at a table before ordering his coffee. People are forever leaving magazines lying around in bookstore coffee shops, so you learn to just take tables if that is the only sign someone else is using it, however when this man discovered a woman sitting in a chair adjacent to the magazine he had left he yelled at her 'HEY, that’s my seat!' and when she apologized and started to leave, clearly embarrassed, he yelled again 'you can take one of the other chairs' pointing at the two at the table he was at, as if she may want to now sit and share a table with him, in one of the chairs he found too poor for his own behind.

As she hurried away, clearly hoping to avoid being yelled at again by a strange effeminate middle aged man in public, he yelled loud enough to make sure everyone heard 'look at the Montreal princess, we should send her to one of the boarding schools I went to.'

A couple of people laughed nervously. I just thought ‘what an asshole’.

Then I began to fantasize. I am in Montreal at the moment, home to the huge ‘Just For laughs comedy Festival’, and I began to imagine I was performing in the festival tonight, and how I may tell the story of this man to my adoring crowd.

‘I bet he never even went to boarding school’ I thought I may say ‘he probably just masturbates thinking of boarding school boys?’

Hmmm, would my audience laugh at that? Maybe not.

‘He's probably the rare kind of gay man who is a dominant bottom’ I speculated, ‘he probably says to his lovers’ I continued, in my mind, and then imagining acting him out I put on his voice and said to my audience “alright now you're going to fuck me, but I only want you to penetrate me four inches, if you go deeper I will get very mad, you got that? Ok do it, now.  Ok, ok, now that's only three and a half inches, are you a fucking moron?”'

‘Yeah that would get a huge laugh!’ I decided.

It was now I remembered that I was not performing tonight in the comedy festival, as the festival isn’t on, and I don’t have an adoring fan base, perhaps because I don’t even perform stand-up anymore. Instead I was currently sitting in a Starbucks imagining middle-aged men having gay sex.

That's the problem with rude assholes, they never think about just how they affect those around them.