Tuesday, June 29, 2010

OVERHEARD


"You gotta go in. I aint got no d*** shirt on!"
Shirtless, skinny, white male, mid-twenties, with a dragon tattoo across his shoulders speaking to a heavy set, white female, outside Fairway market.

"Hey guys, watch your language over there."
White, female, cashier in her mid-twenties at Village Market speaking to a group of guys who had been using language that would have been wildly inappropriate even for a private conversation. I was impressed by two things; First, that she told them to cut it out. Village Market is equal parts wild west and leper colony and these guys were pretty scurfy looking. I am actually frightened to shop there sometimes. I flashed her a smile of appreciation and then lingered long enough after making my purchase to ensure there was no retaliation or anything, which brings me to the second thing I appreciated- they cleaned up their language when she asked them to. It made me think that we have perhaps ceded too much territory to latter day barbarians such as these by simply giving it to them through silence. Silence is surrender in matters such as these.

7 comments:

The Sauce said...

No shit, no shoes, no class, no discretion, no service. Never should've let those Australians integrate. Then again I'm livin' in the past. . . say, "300 years in the past".

Cool post, Josh.
Eyes/shirt--matching.
No wonder your kids' faces are so expressive. You do a good faux appalled reaction here, assuming you took the pic after the actual incident-- Guessing that's not you at the store.

On a serious note: Silence is too often passive approbation, agreed.

Josh Tate said...

Your S-bomb is like a tar ball washing up on the very shores of the bummer-free zone.

Josh Tate said...

I agree about the Australians though.

The Sauce said...

OH MY GOSH I'm sorry!!! it wasn't intentional. Ahaha. Oh no.
Obviously I meant no SHIRT. I made the same typo recently on facebook in reference to Job's receipt of a free t-shi...(r)t for attending the Brian Dubie Campaign launch, but caught it in time to correct.

I'm so sorry!!!!
Geez, I'm blubbering. I'm worse than Tony Hayward without his P.R. handlers.

For the record, had it not been a typo, that'd be some mighty strange rules of conduct for a shop. Sorry!!!

Josh Tate said...

It's good for ratings.

The Sauce said...

As we well know. Where is that other masterpiece?!?

sharon said...

It was good for ratings. I am reading right now because of the sh*t.

I like this picture. I often ask people to clean up their language because of the kids. I am often ignored, but I do it anyway. I found there are many habits I cannot break since being a teacher. For instance, I find every child to be mine for the telling. And the teacher-face. I still do it.