A Tiny, Partisan Moment

A few days back, maybe last week, I was at my favorite luncheon spot: Taco Bell. Like most fast-food places these days, they have a wee labyrinth on the approach to their cash register (oops! I mean point-of-sale terminal, of course) to guide the single queue that forms in order to order. The labyrinthine area, arranged of turquoise railings on equally turquoise posts, is far from subtle or easy-to-miss, as some of my four regular readers can attest.

I was standing at the head of the queue in a nearly empty restaurant, awaiting my call to the POS terminal. The doors to the dining room opened and a smartly dressed, rather self-important person strode briskly into the room, stepped smartly toward the order counter, and took up a place in the gap between labyrinth and order counter, in front of me! As he stood, he looked fixedly at the counter and wall to the side, both directions in which his studied gaze would least likely light upon yours truly.

In other words, he adopted a stance and attitude that allowed him to pretend to himself that he simply didn't see me, hadn't seen me, wouldn't see me until he was called upon to order first. With luck, I would say nothing and he could silently usurp my place in line as — his body language suggested — he felt was his due in the natural order of things.

But, he did not know that this was my turf, my Taco Bell, so I felt emboldened to speak. "I was already waiting," I said to his left shoulder.

He pretended that he was surprised to hear a voice from my direction. "Ah! Oh! I didn't know there was a line," he said, rather disingenuously, I thought, but he did allow me to precede him.

I know it was uncharitable of me, since this occurred just a few days after our recent mid-term election, but what I really wanted to ask him was this: "You're Republican, aren't you?"

Posted on November 25, 2006 at 00.53 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Splenetics

4 Responses

Subscribe to comments via RSS

  1. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Sunday, 26 November 2006 at 01.19
    Permalink

    Could be GOP, all right. But it's even more likely he is or was in the Air Force — a pilot or flight crew member, to be precise.

  2. Written by rightsaidfred
    on Monday, 27 November 2006 at 09.35
    Permalink

    I often think I have been elbowed out of my place in line more often than most. I always figured it was because I had the aura of a robber baron Republican, so the put upon proletariat surrounding me felt entitled to grab a piece of my good fortune, via my place in line.

  3. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Wednesday, 29 November 2006 at 05.07
    Permalink

    Sorry for busting your bubble, RSF, but if a piece of your good fortune consists of a place in line at a fast-food joint, you don't qualify as a robber-barron Republican.

  4. Written by rightsaidfred
    on Thursday, 30 November 2006 at 09.36
    Permalink

    That makes me ponder the question: Do I want the truth, or a lie that gives me hope?

Subscribe to comments via RSS

Leave a Reply

To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.

I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.