Ellemental

I think I’m pretty polite. It comes from the whole Good Girl thing I just can’t shake. Even when strangers with lip tattoos scare the heck out of me by coming up behind me and chokeholding hugging me, I’ll graciously smile, give a nervous little hug back, then look at my wrist and say “Oh, look at the time…” rather than being all “What the hell, dude?”

Ok, actually in that case it isn’t politeness so much as self preservation, but whatever.   The point is that I would not intentionally call someone out or make them feel bad or , well, be impolite.  Right or wrong, I can’t do it.  Usually.

This past weekend I went with the VIM to one of his weekend gigs – a local hotel bar.  I sort of enjoy going because I’m a people watcher, and really, can there BE a better place to be a people watcher than a bar in a hotel close to the interstate?  I think not.

It started out to be a slow night, but then a gentleman sat down beside me at the bar.  We exchanged smiles (yes, polite smiles), but didn’t speak for 15 minutes or so.  Then finally, while the VIM was playing a Bob Dylan song, the man said, “I didn’t know when I came here tonight that I’d be transported back to the sixties.”

I turned and smiled, but before I could say anything, he added, “and that it would be as DREADFULLY tedious as the first time.”

My mouth clamped shut and my smile froze, but he didn’t notice.  He was starting his roll.  His roll was all about DREADFUL music (which is all music written after 1946), the TEDIOUS hippie mindset which still lingers to this day, otherwise why would that…that MAN be playing those horrible (nose wrinkles) peace and love songs?

At first I was thinking that it was going to be a great story for the ride home.  People watching at its best!  But quite frankly, I grew DREADFULLY bored with the gentleman’s TEDIOUS blatherings.  I wasn’t able to bring myself to get up and walk away from him, but I can’t even describe the amazingly evil feeling of glee I felt when he finally took a break from his ongoing commentary of the VIM’s DREADFUL choice of music to ask me what my story was, and I just gave a little smile and said, “I’m with the singer.”