I guess it was bound to happen.
I have a great deal internal fury that hasn't eased much since Tuesday. I've done my very best not to talk politics with anyone this week. The woman who sits next to me in my office is a Bush supporter. While she was whistling while she worked, which is unusual for her, she smartly said nothing and neither did I. We enjoy our friendship too much to be that stupid.
Today, however, somebody decided to push the button, and it was ugly. Read on...
I own a bookstore. Like any place like this, it attracts its cast of neighborhood regulars who like to come in and shoot he shit. I'm a social guy, so it's alright by me. So one of the neighborhood regulars stopped by tonight. He comes in practically
every day. He had previously made some snide anti-Kerry comments, and I told him straight out that politics was not a road I wanted to go down with him and that I would prefer it if he avoided the subject during his visits. For the most part he complied. Tonight, though, apparently having been drinking, he couldn't resist. He informed me he had sent a local anti-Bush writer a faux airplane ticket to France. He thought this was hilarious. At that, I told him that my wife and I were looking seriously into emigratng to Canada. His response?
"Hey, go. I feel safer."
I began to feel the anger rising. I asked him to drop it and insisted that he not go down this road(note: he never bought anything during his visits; he simply sat in a chair until he decided to leave, so I felt OK about limiting the discussion). At that, he took this ridiculously drunken arrogant attitude and said:
"Gee, you get awfully psychotic about this."
I'd had enough. I told him to leave and that he was no longer welcome in the store. I wasn't going to put up with a guest in the store calling me "psychotic." He jumped up, started banging threateningly on the counter, screaming that I had one time called him a "liar" (I hadn't; I'd disagreed with something he claimed to be fact). It was bizarre and got stranger.
I was infuriated at this point and told him to get the fuck out of the store. He responded by starting to leave, but telling me that if the store was ever vandalized, it wouldn't be him that did it! Then he refused to leave. I had to threaten to call the police to get him out. I picked up the phone while he was yelling at me that I was probably "psychotic" enough to actually do it. When he saw I was serious (I was), he left.
How beautiful. Polarization in action. I really have nothing more to say about this; I just need to vent someplace where I feel safe. The only emotion I feel right now is anger: red-hot anger that I was threatened by a guy who feels safe because Bush is President (apparently safe enough to threaten neighborhood businesses that don't toe the line), and angry that I live in country stupid enough to allow fascists to take over.
Christ.