I’m embarrassed to say I lost my temper last night at the gym. I was sweating away my own business on that horrid torture device called the elliptical, which is supposed to simulate running but is really just another giant gerbil toy that contorts my old-before-their-time hips in unnatural ways, when the guy next to me asks me what I think about VP candidate Sarah Palin.
“You don’t want to know,” I said.
“No, really, you’re a woman – you must be thrilled,” he insisted.
“Not really,” I mumbled, not making eye contact, just hoping to serve my 30-minute fatburner sentence and go do some weenie push-ups and call it a day.
I f*king hate small talk as a rule; if you attempt a stupid conversation with when I am breathing hard and shvitzing, I bite. I pegged this doofus the minute he opened his mouth, but I gave him the courtesy of a second warning: “I prefer not to talk politics with strangers in public place.”
“Well,” he chuckled. “I think she’s pretty hot!”
I was already pissed about being at the gym in the first place, and this chauvinist joker was asking for what came next: “That’s fantastic! The Republican party will be so pleased! Shit, if they threw in some Playboy bunnies into the Cabinet, you could have the ticket of your dreams, right? I’ve got news for you, mister: I’m not fooled by the sexy librarian act and Sarah Palin is the worst thing to happen for women’s rights in this country since Phyllis Schlafly.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a middle-aged woman on the treadmill nod her head.
Bouyed by that and the endorphin rush of reaching my target heart rate, I spewed out Palin’s hypocritical stance on birth control and abortion (how can she claim “abstinence-only sex education is effective when her teenage daughter is pregnant?) and continued with her flip-flop of the bridge to nowhere, her uninformed views about Iraq, her belief that global warning isn’t manmade, her wish to have creationism taught in public schools. Plus her pastor thinks all Jews need Jesus.
So then the guy does what all ignorant NASCAR-loving morons do when confronted with logic: He accuses me of being anti-American. “What other country would you want to live in? Huh? Huh?”
Two women on the stationary bicycles who were probably trying to get through their own workouts in peace looked at me and raised their eyebrows.
“Just because I don’t agree with my government doesn’t mean I don’t love my country, buddy, and I’m really sick of this idea that backasswards conservatism holds the monopoly on patriotism. I am a proud patriot, and I want to live in an America that upholds the Constitution, guarantees freedom for all its citizens and respects human rights. I want a government that provides a decent education for everyone and puts money into its future. In the last eight years a Republican White House has shipped 87 billion dollars into a war that only people still drinking the Kool-Aid think was justified. Bridges are collapsing and our schools are in emergency mode, George Bush has practically third-worlded our dollar and fumbled our foreign policy like a bad high school football game. I’m an American – a really angry one.”
He shut up after that, and we sluiced away silently next to each other uncomfortably for the next ten minutes. His machine beeped and he jumped off, wiped down the armpoles and waved his towel. “You have a good night!”
I shrugged my shoulders. I hate phony courtesy almost as much as I hate small talk.
The ladies on the treadmill and bicycles gave me more approving nods. “You tried to warn him, didn’t ya?”
The good news is that this was the best workout I’d had all week. The extra adrenaline helped me burn enough extra calories to justify some ice cream.
Thanks for the warning! I’ll just waggle my fingers at you through the windshield from here on out.
(You sort of have the Sarah Palin verve going on).
🙂
Word on the street (*ahem* the internets) is that Sarah Palin has an Israeli flag in her office. Probably because she’s one of those rapture types who will also neglect making plans for her pets.
LOLyall ~ Sav Red, I only hunt bargains, not moose; no guns required. And shouldn’t you be, like, checking for hall passes or something?
Joe – thas’ right, pardner.
Palin is the worst choice McCain could have made. He had the anti-Obama/conservative vote; he shouldn’t have pandered to that group by picking a super conservative VP that might chase away moderates.
By the way, that’s Palin’s head photoshopped on another body. Believe it or not, it actually improves the picture.
First, let me say that I agree 100% with what you told NASCARMan. Actually, that was so succinct that everyone should write it down and put it in their wallets for when the time comes.
Still, however, and let me say that I am a lifelong Democrat, what McCain did was just plain brilliant. Let’s face it, in our People Magazine culture, every NASCARMan has been fantasizing for just this moment; a hot smiling babe in glasses in charge! She’ll bat her eyelashes, tell them what to do, and all you’ll hear is, “Yup, uh huh.” It was b-r-i-l-l-i-a-n-t.
Oh, and I can guarantee that when you mentioned Playboy-bunnies-in-the-Cabinet, the first word in NASCARMan’s mind had to have been, “Sweet!”
I just love you 🙂
Your posts make me smile!
Shabbat Shalom to you and your family!
Think you could make it out to Phoenix to have lunch with me?
See my Yo Yenta worship here.
I think this is your best post yet! You hit the nail on the head. I just love reading your blog…never know what post might pop up next! Sarah Lily is looking forward to her 1st day back at Shalom School 🙂 See you on Sunday!
Here’s my 2 cents, speaking as a woman:
#1 The women I know don’t vote for a candidate just because she’s a woman. It’s just plain idiocy.
#2 chick’s not that hot. I know way hotter women ten years older than her. She’s just the hottest politician he’s seen lately.
#3 just so ya know, not everyone who watches NASCAR is a gun toting, skin head, blubbering fool who chews tobacco and beats his wife and kids. I’m a fan from way on back (Go Ryan Newman #12 !!!) and actually graduated from college. 😀
Wow! Imagine how you would have lit into him if you weren’t out of breath and trying to keep your balance.
This made me laugh out loud! Funny and really well-written. Of course, I agree completely and I wish I could have said it as well the last time someone asked me what I thought about Palin.
Palin is a scary woman.
Totsy-totsy, who’s the body? By the way, you don’t need me to tell you that you took the bait, right? He’s a schmuck whose political views and dating savvy should be cast to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
http://www.popcrunch.com/sarah-palin-picture-gallery/
As always, you articulated so well what needed to be said. I shared a link to the encounter on my facebook page so that more people can get to know you and have a script to follow when they invariably come across the same brand of dim, stepford-Republicans who make our kishkas curl into a knot. However, we all need to remember that when you get into a pissing match with a skunk, everyone comes out stinking.