| Thursday December 22, 2005
2:25 PM |
||
Christmastime at the airport. |
||
"The end of the line is over here, sir," I say. I'm standing in line at Starbucks Coffee house at the Tampa International Airport. "Behind me," I say. I've pulled the earbuds from my ears and stretched my lips into a kinda crooked half smile. "I knew you were the end of the line," he says. He's got a head like a basketball and he's with a woman and he's yelling at her and other people are looking at him and when I turn to look he says: "Bugger off, asshole." Almost always I make deliberate attempts to not get involved in anything but when he says, "Bugger off asshole," I feel my heart beat just a little faster. "Excuse me?" I say then putting the earbuds in my pocket. "This ain't your business, mate," he says and when he's finished his sentence he moves his head closer to mine and looks into my eyes and while he's looking into my eyes the woman he's with says: "Leave 'em alone, Kylie." I'm thinking that probably half a dozen cameras are aimed at us and wanting to avoid trouble I say: "I'm pretty sure you don't want to be doing this in an airport, sir." "Bugger off then," he says. I've been calling people sir or ma'am since I was a kid. It's automatic for me. Usually I find it to be inappropriate. Few women like to be called ma'am though men seem to delight in being called sir but calling this Aussie sir at this moment was ridiculous and I'm disappointed I didn't say something like, "How'd you like this ipod Shuffle shoved into your f-cking eye," or "This might look like a harmless wire going to my earbuds but in actuality sir, it is a razor sharp garrote and one more peep and I'll saw your I've been in a mental institution. I've had a temporary restraining order issued against me. My mother is a bossy, controlling mountain of fat and she walks like one of Adolf Hitler's marching soldiers (during an exhibition parade) and she made me get dead cats out from under our rented house in Detroit (in the winter using only a penlight flashlight) and she wishes she would have aborted me when she had the chance. My aunt Marge who really wasn't my aunt Marge took me out on my birthday (when I was a kid) and said I could have anything I wanted as long as it didn't exceed one dollar. I wanted to say what David Banner would have said: Please don't make me angry. You won't like me when I'm angry. Instead I say: "I just want to get my Caramel Macchiato, sir." I'm closer to the front of the line and he is yelling again and people are looking at him and to the woman standing behind the counter I say: "Ma'am." "We know," she says and when I turn around he is being taken from the Starbucks by armed police officers. "Welcome to America, Kylie," I say. "Merry Christmas." I'm pretty sure he heard me say, "Welcome to America, Kylie," but he was some distance from me when I half heartedly said, "Merry Christmas." PREVIOUS HOME NEXT |
||