Ever wonder what happened to the days of live and let live? I do. Last week I was out driving my medical records from one provider to another (which is a diary all by itself but only background for this one). Traffic predictably was mostly stop and too little go due to intermittent rain. Florida is a strange weather state. If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes. Likewise, you can drive in and out of about 5 rain storms within 10 square miles, which is what I did last week. Floridians have probably 50 descriptions for rain, I dealt with a sun shower (you need both your sunglasses and your wipers on), a drizzle, a drive through deluge (in the space of a ¼ - ½ mile you go through what feels like a continual waterfall, then it suddenly stops) rounded out with steam heat when the rain evaporates off the road in bright sunlight. What should have been a total of 45-50 minutes drive time for 4 stops turned into a couple hours.
After my final drop off/pick-up, I decided to give into a guilty pleasure and get an iced coffee….with whipped cream...lots of whipped cream before heading for home. While waiting for my Snickerdoodle iced coffee with extra whipped cream I looked up at their TV monitor and saw the first news feeds of the San Bernardino mass shooting and instantly realized my piddly problems were bullshit compared to the reality playing out in front of my eyes.
I was stunned and blurted out in some order, “OMGosh!, What happened? Why would anyone do this?” The counter man sighed and handed me my coffee and said he would’ve turned it off, but several guests wanted to watch the news. I nodded, thanked the man, dropped a tip in the jar and sat down at a table. I tuned out the TV and focused on organizing my papers, DVDs and thoughts in an effort to chill out before driving home. I barely noticed the two men beside me.
“Obama,” he said.
I was matching disks to reports and so I didn’t think I heard all he had said. I looked up. The man at the table next to mine was talking to me. He realized I didn’t hear him and repeated, “Obama”.
I blinked, shrugged, “What about President Obama?”
The man was older, dressed in work clothes and I remembered the electrician’s work van I parked beside in the lot. He was a little irked that I called “Obama”, President Obama. He repeated his comment with a little more exasperation and explanation, “Obama. I heard you up at the counter. This is because of Obama.”
I have read many a diary around here about encounters like this and lord knows I’ve had them before; but this time I responded. Instead of trying to smile and nod my way out of it, the absurdity of what he said and the atrocity playing out on the screen came to a head. I laughed, I thought he was joking and said, “Oh, Bull Shit! You can’t be serious.” Mr. Wolverton and I have talked about people who blame President Obama for everything, but we never talked about what we’d say in a situation like this.
The guy was a bit taken back with my reaction. Maybe he wasn’t used to women laughing at his ideas, or worse have one call him out on his bull shit. He got a little bolder, “No, really. These shootings are happening because Obama is a do nothing President. He’s in over his head. He’s incompetent. He wants to take our guns.” (that came out of no where) “He can’t deal with ISIS. He can’t deal with the economy. He can’t solve anything. These mass shootings are Obama’s fault!” I had run into these “arguments” before, so I had several comebacks ready, but this was a stranger; it would be best to let this slide.
I shook my head and continued to disagree in what I thought was a polite manner, “I think we have to agree to disagree here. U.S. problems can’t be boiled down to one man. It’s more complicated than that. Do you blame Obama for the price drop to $2 for a gallon of gas, too?”
Yeah, that was a mistake. I shouldn’t have laughed and I shouldn’t have snarked. I realized, too late, from the look on his face, that I didn’t know this guy and couldn’t predict what he would do next. I needed a way to gracefully return to what I was doing.
He was not aggressive, but he wasn’t having any of my agreeing to disagree business. “That’s the problem! You can’t have it both ways. Either I’m right or you are. That’s why our country is such a mess. We have to decide which way we’re going to go and get there.”
There is no way on this earth I am going to agree that compromise is categorically unacceptable, but I also could see that I was not going to have a rational conversation either.
While trying to find a way to polite way out I looked up at the screen. This was before we knew the names of the shooters. This was 12/2/2015 at 4pm EST. This was raw footage. It was before we saw the shot up black SUV. This could have been anyone for whatever reason. Aw hell, I went for it. I looked him in the eye and calmly said, “This happened because these two or three people decided that they were entitled to shooting a lot of people. These shooters decided that other people’s lives, families, dreams and beliefs didn’t matter. They decided what they wanted was more important than keeping the peace. Innocent people were shot dead because these shooters didn’t have respect for humanity and thought shooting guns, killing people was some sort of answer. I don’t know what they believe but it sure isn’t “live and let live”. This is on the shooters, not President Obama.” (The idea that this could be either a work place shooting, terrorism or a combination or both wasn’t known yet.)
So much for a graceful bounce out of an uncomfortable conversation. He was miffed and pedantically went on, “Obama is destroying America, you need to wake up”.
Now, I admit I was drinking coffee at 4 in the afternoon, but I was fully awake and have been politically awake for some time. We weren’t going to agree on anything. I sighed, “Mister, we aren’t going to agree on this and that’s ok…..”
He interrupted me, “No it’s not, ok”, he said it with quotation marks in the air and a snotty tone. Then he got serious and continued in a louder, but clear tone, “Libruls like you are destroying this country! ..and I’m sick of it!” (emphasis on Sick of it!) I guess he assumed I was “librul” because I didn’t see the connection between President Obama and the San Bernardino shooters. I was thinking of how I could make a quick exit and had my stuff stacked up for a quick exit, but while I was thinking; he stood up and was between me and the door. Then, I noticed the man he was with was very nervous and stood also; sort of positioning himself between me and the man. Then, I noticed the people behind the counter were also nervous. Oh, shit! This guy was a regular in this coffee shop. I had to find a way to de-escalate this dude in a hurry.
I gestured palms up, “Look man, I just came in from the road, looking for a cup of coffee and was shocked by that”, I gestured toward the TV, “on the screen”. I shook my head, “I’m not here to upset you. ….”
I had no idea where to go from there. I wanted to leave, but ….
His co-worker came to my rescue and took what I said as an out, “Hey, man! Look at the time! It’s an hour back to the shop! We gotta get back to set up for tomorrow.” The man who was talking to me didn’t have much of a chance to reply as he was being ushered/pushed out the door. I hadn’t noticed, but the manager left the counter and was standing beside where I was sitting. We watched them get in their work truck and leave the parking lot.
I looked up at the manager, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause a scene. Is he a regular here?”
The manager shook his head, “I’ve worked here for 4 years and I’ve never seen him before. I was afraid he was going to lose it. I’m glad the other guy got him out of here. I didn’t know what he was going to do. I wanted to watch him leave.”
I think my eyes must of bugged out of my head, the manager went on, “We train on this. You never know. You, we could’ve been killed if he was a nut case. You weren’t the problem. He was.” The manger left me staring out the window as he went back behind the counter. Killed? geesh
Left to my thoughts my mind wandered. This whole scene played out in less than 3 minutes and up until he stood up, I thought it was not serious. I thought it was going to blow over. When did it become a life threatening event to reply to a crack pot? I don’t frighten easily and in fact, I was a bit surprised that the manager thought thought we were having a high risk conversation; but maybe that’s the way it is today.
I took the west side roads all the way home. I told Mr. Wolverton what happened. He closed his eyes, hugged me, and said, “I’m glad you’re home.”