In the course of my day, I hear all kinds of strange things. Or see them. Or otherwise encounter them. On several occasions, I have put this to social media, and been told I should have a blog. It's high time I listened. Here are two marvelous instances of such insanity.
The first:
I was eating breakfast at a local establishment with the short one and the husband when I was stopped by a gentleman who had been flirting shamelessly with the waitress. Normally, I say nothing, but this guy was creepy. She was under 24, and he admitted that he was in his late 70's to her. That's every persons prerogative if they wish to date outside their rough age group, but he was being the kind of sleazy that makes me want to walk her to her car. As I go to walk by him with my daughter, he stops me with this, and this is the rough outline of the conversation:
"Excuse me, miss? I was watching TV this morning and I saw a redhead on there and thought to myself 'golly, you don't see too many of those any more, do you?' And here I am at breakfast and another stunning redhead walks RIGHT by!"
"Well, thank you." I say, edging closer to the exit.
"So you're Scottish? Irish?"
"American. Several generations deep, actually."
"Yes, but BEFORE that...?" These questions irritate me under normal circumstances. If I have to go back more than 5 generations to get OFF American soil, then I'm American in my breeding. You don't call a horse a TB if for the last 5 generations it has no papers, and contains only 1/32nd % TB from way back, so calling myself English, or French, or whatever is really just asinine. Not to mention the fact that it's really none of your damned business who my great great grandmother took to husband. Today, I decided to be civil, and humoured the codger.
"I'm predominantly Leb and English on my mother's side, and I understand my father has a smattering of Native American heritage."
"Nonsense, you're too pale."
"Yeahhhhhhhh..."
"I would have taken you for a Viking Queen!"
Would you believe it? I turned on my heel and walked to my car.
Let's set the record straight. I was born with hair so blonde that in the summer, I have appear to have a hairline 4 inches back from where it actually is. It was intensely long and blonde at my wedding, and then I hacked it off and used henna to dye it red. I don't mean like chemical dye red. I mean, I have more people comment that you can't get that colour from a box. Or you cannot dye your hair that way. Parents of redheaded children remark on how I came to tan with my naturally red hair. My daughter gets mournful noises made at her for not getting "mommy's beautiful hair." In point of fact, she did. She can have the ginger if she wants when she's older. I'll even help her slather her head in green goop. So, the basis of my Viking Queenhood is a lie. A dirty, smelly, henna filled lie.
Thanks, creepy codger. You've made my day.
The second:
I was in WalMart, which I know is a terrible place to be, but I was feeling lazy and needed an assortment of things in one place. I mean, Target doesn't carry stanley knives, 5 gallon buckets, bandanas (for $1!!!) doe in heat pee in a bottle (I will be bow hunting this year) and ketchup all in one place, does it? Nope. So off to the insanity that is Wallyworld to be accosted by people who cannot mind their own business.
"So, how long have you been over here?" Says the strange man to the ginger woman. I had a vest on, you know the polarfleece kind that leave your arms exposed. This has a reason. I have poison ivy all over my arm right now, so sleeves are kind of a no-go. I had my hair partly up under a woolen, brown tartan flat cap. This is sufficient, I guess, to land me squarely back in the corner of "fresh off the boat." This day, I decided to, in the vernacular, fuck with this one.
I put on my best Irish accent (which is not bad, maybe wouldn't pass in Ireland, but the rest of the world would TOTALLY buy it) and said to the peculiar gent, "Lord Jesus, I tink it's been 5 year now."
"What did you say?"
"Oh, right. Too tick an accent fer yeh?" I slowed down and said a bit clearer, but still accented "I say about 5 year."
"What?" So, here I got annoyed. That's a wretched American habit that the rest of the world really hates us for. Saying "what?" like that, it's almost vulgar. "Pardon?" "Sorry, I didn't quite catch that." Be polite. Dude ticked me off with his nasal "What?" So I stopped playing.
Dropping my fun and games and returning to my own bastardized American-English I replied, to his horror, "I was born here. There's not a lick of Irish to me. Ta-ta." And then skipped off with my daughter's hand in mine. We skipped to the checkout, because why not. She's 3.
Moral of the "assume the ginger is foreign" story line would be: Don't be an ass.
