The sales clerk at a downtown Washington D.C. Men's clothing store understood me. As he was ringing up DH's purchase, he asked why I didn't have an H&M bag to show for my time mucking around over there, right across the street. When I told him I couldn't patronize a store that was so blatantly selling sex, he nodded knowingly. We discussed the sick music, the in your face lingerie & skimpy hemlines, but not the fake nipples on the female manekins (but I would've, had DH been anywhere else: "yeah, why DON'T the male manekins have 'em? They must get just as cold standin out in those frosty east coast window displays..."). We bonded instantly. From there, my poor DH, proud owner of a half-off silk pullover, freshly wrapped in JosA.Banks tissue and nicely bagged, stood by helplessly as his wife and her dapper new soul mate talked politics like we knew our opinions mattered. Maybe some day, we'd be called in to produce invaluable testimony to some impending congressional investigation re: all that ills mankind. DH waited; so patient, so obliging.
It was inevitable, though. Mr. Salesman-the-Democrat and I had to disagree at some point, and, as his predilections leaned leftward, I learned he opposed unregulated homeschoolers. I was reduced to defending myself against government encroachment that he insisted we needed because somewhere, some evil mother is abusing the privilege of keeping her kids home from the neighborhood school house. I chuckled inside! I was tempted to out myself! That woman is me! Lazy, mean spirited, and for heavens sakes, a child abuser because I spanked a kid in anger MORE than once! Yes, my poor kids were definitely deprived of the Harvard education that was to have been their destiny all because I forged Bible into their heads instead of algebra. My bad.
Well, to change the subject and get back to a nice dispute about which we might once again agree, we said our goodbyes over the conclusion that ChaseBank does not deserve us, and that boycotting them is the least we can do to protest J.P. Morgan's complicity in the real estate meltdown. And Fanny/Freddy. And the Feds. And the consumers who thought they could get a Somethin4Nothin mortgage...
Ahhh. Washington D.C! Guaranteed to supply "Everyman" with a seven minute power trip via debate between shop clerk and shopper.
[Holy LORD... would that I will forsake my argumentative pride and name the Almighty NAME above all names as the only subject worth debating. Would that I might leave a fragrant spirit of healing in my wake, and not a divisive air of factionalism... Upend me, LORD, that I could see my way to hold discussions of IMPORT, and forsake these silly exercises in self importance. aMeN.]
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