Anti-Racist Jon & the Angry White Lady
The week before bar Halloween we kicked out some kid who was very upset at us. He made his extreme displeasure known by shouting at us, calling us “anti-racists.”
Anti-
Racists.
The opposite of racists. As an insult.
He was white. And so was the manager who kicked him out.
So, going to the tally boards, I’ve been called Racist, Anti-Racist, and Whitist in my time at the bar. And not a single time from any person of color.
Cut to last weekend. A few notable things to get out of the way. I got seven again. That marks the 11th time and now I just have to live with it. I’m never going to eclipse that stupid number. That’s the same number of John Elway and stupid old man helicopter that beat the Packers in the Super Bowl.
It’s a bad number.
And then the Angry White Lady came through the following day.
White Privilege is real, folks.
A group of 20-odd people was walking down the sidewalk from the neighboring bar. At first glance, they seemed fine. As fine as a smattering of 30 to 60-year-olds could be. Two ringleaders walked up and asked to come into the bar. Well, not asked.
“We’re with Carlos and the band.”
“Ma’am, there’s no Carlos.”
“Well, we’re with the band.”
“What band? We don’t have a band. We have neither a Carlos nor a band.”
“Well, it was a pretty good try.”
“Define good.”
“Well, what’s the cover and wait?”
“No cover, and maybe 15 minutes.”
That leaves two of 20 knowing full well that they don’t have to pay any money to get into the bar.
Fifteen minutes pass and look, it’s the group.
The lead woman asks what the cover is.
“No cover,” I respond. It was a different woman, but same group. That’s now three of 20 that know the situation.
A whole 15 percent.
White Privilege is real, I have to reiterate.
AWL (angry white lady) hands me her ID and a $20 bill. Nothing else.
She knows there isn’t a cover.
She waited in line.
She was first in line.
Barring any setbacks, the whole group was getting inside.
There was a setback.
One of the party was too drunk to get in. I knew this before I even laid eyes on him. How did I know he was too drunk? When someone you don’t know tells you that he’s going to take care of another stranger, in a bar, that second stranger is trashed.
Like, fall into a stantion and apologize drunk.
So, I told him, and the group, he couldn’t go inside. But everyone else still could.
And the walls of Jericho tumbled down, unleashing hell upon this earth.
AWL claimed I stole her money. She threatened, and later mimed, calling the police. She traded barbs with our new doorguy, Maui, who she told to go back to Mexico.
Yeah, she was one of those racists.
She told her crew to start videotaping me.
I waved.
And smiled.
I was wearing my Carhartt neck protector so she couldn’t see that I was smiling, but I hope she felt as if I was smiling like that meme smile Dany gives to Sansa in the library.
Long story short, AWL left, only to leave a nasty online review, albeit leaving out her blatant public display of racism to someone who isn’t even Mexican!
The cops did show up, but not because of her. Two yokels and some slick college kid got into a parking lot beatdown.
And … let’s see.
Peanut got into a fight with a lanky lumberjack.
And someone at the end of the weekend — the excrutiatingly long daylight saving weekend — said that he remembers me from “yelling at my wife in the Wal-Mart parking lot.”
First of all, how dare you. How dare you insinuate that I shop at Wal-Mart. Secondly, I have no wife. Especially not one I would yell at in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
Ikea, maybe.
But a Wal-Mart?
Am I a joke to you?
