Okay, first, I just want to say that I can't say that I am 100% sure that I encountered an actual teabagger today, but either way he was an ass. Now, on with the story.
I was driving home from my first Saturday of basketball with my buddies of the year, feeling good with the nice weather, and my new Andrew W.K. album playing in the CD player. Since it was nice, I had my window open. As I was stopped at a traffic light, a truck pulled up next to me, and the guy inside started talking. I turned down my music, thinking that he wanted directions or something. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
Now remember, this guy is a complete stranger. The first thing he said to me was, "So, how's that hope and change going for you?" I assume he was referring to my Obama bumper sticker. I promptly responded "pretty good - I'm pretty happy with Obama." He didn't like this, so he then accused me of not having a job and collecting welfare - I guess that's the only possible way I could possibly like Obama. Since I was in a good mood, I still just pretty much laughed him off and such; however, the man continued. He told me that I need to read more, and that I should watch Fox News. Again, I simply chuckled, and tried to dismiss him. But he continued. He then said, "I guess you don't like freedom." Now this really made no sense, but I told him that I wasn't exactly happy with the last eight years of Bush, and those times weren't so great. Well this really pushed him over the edge (how dare I talk badly about the great Bushie), and he started yelling about how great Bush was.
Then it got really interesting (I know, you're all thinking, "how the hell long was this traffic light?" Too long. The man then began to tell me how Obama was actually a muslim. I don't remember exactly how I responded to this one, but I might have called him an idiot. If I did, that was the worst that I said to him, and up to this point, I had remained very pleasant, considering what an ass he was. But then he officially snapped, and he said "you're just a nigger lover."
At this, I finally got mad, and I started calling him every name in the book. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I know that I used pretty much every curse word that I know. Thinking back, I probably didn't handle it the best that I could have, but the creep caught me off guard. Anyway, at least I let him have it before the light finally changed, and I could be rid of the jerkoff.
Anyway, the point of this story is that racism is at the root of all of the hatred coming from the teabaggers, not that we didn't already know that, but I actually got to experience it firsthand. It's weird, you know that kind of stuff is out there, but you never expect to actually run into someone like that.
I just thought I would pass on my little tale. It's kind of sad that there are really people like that out there, but if nothing else, it motivated me to do more to keep our values and ideas going!