I had dinner Friday night at my local hangout, or if you prefer, my Florida “headquarters,” O Bistro. And for reasons that will cause this to be posted in politics and not dining, I may be seeking a new place to be my regular haunt.
First, it has nothing to do with O Bistro. The food is superb, the service attentive….Lucy and Suzy take good care of me, even to the extent of answering me when I call them Lucy and Suzy, given that their names (I think) are Karin and Chrissy. The owner, Sharon, and her husband, Jack, are gracious and generous hosts. Friday night, I had another excellent meal; rather than my customary steak or veal, I ordered a dish new to me: “adult chicken fingers.” The chicken is breaded in crushed pecans and the mac and cheese side dish is actually a rich blend of very good cheeses. Hard to think of chicken fingers with mac and cheese as a gourmet meal, but it succeeds.
So what’s the problem? Alas, it’s some of the customers at the bar.
For reasons which escape me, the bar (or maybe it’s just Florida in general) seems to be a magnet for far-left types and conspiracy theorists, who, like crackpots everywhere, seem to have an irrepressible urge to share their drivel with everyone within earshot. And since I’m there frequently and within earshot, this includes moi. As those of you who know me would expect, this does not go well.
Friday, the crackpot du jour at the bar wanted, after praising that statesman (and sometimes rapist) Bill Clinton, to lecture on the topic of oil prices. Since I actually understand economics, I know that oil prices are arrived at by a combination of factors, including, primarily, supply and demand. I also know, unlike the windbag du jour at the bar, that they are not set by George Bush. They are also not set by a) Dick Cheney, b) Halliburton, c) Karl Rove, or even d) George Bush in conspiracy with the Saudis he’s “in bed with.” (the latter was presented to me, quite loudly, as a “FACT.” ) I guess facts are more convenient when you just make them up.
After posing a couple of simple, pertinent questions which the dumbass du jour couldn’t answer, such as: from what country does the US import the most oil? (as my Canadian relatives all know, the answer is Canada, not Saudi Arabia or any other Middle Eastern country…Middle East oil goes primarily to Europe and Asia); I decided it was time to utter the famous words, “check please.”
Of course, this caused the cretin du jour , sensing my imminent escape, to begin a new lecture that “everyone is entitled to their own opinion.” In response to that, I think Ann Coulter said it best: “everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but everyone is not entitled to their own facts.”
If this were but an isolated incident, I’d laugh it off. But it isn’t. A recent previous visit involved an otherwise attractive young woman, who, unsolicited, slid down to sit next to me, bought me a drink, and then proceeded, out of the blue, to launch into a harange about Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfield blah blah blah, all being war criminals, or Satan, or Hitler, or whatever charming accolade those “tolerant” liberals are offering up these days to anyone who dares disagree with them. (Truth be told, she was so drunk I was having trouble following her thread of McThoughts) Eventually, she managed to incoherently repeat that cherished left-wing dogma, that Bush wasn’t really elected. Riiiight. Guess he wasn’t reelected either?
But perhaps I’m being unkind; after all, she was nice enough to take time out of her busy schedule of alcohol abuse to lecture me on an election that happened nearly eight years ago, all without taking the time to learn anything about a) the Electoral college system, or b) the five recounts in Florida, every one of which Bush won, even after votes were counted for Gore that actually weren’t for Gore, but the Democrat doing the counting decided the voter really meant to vote for Gore.
And we’re not done there. As they say in the Ronco commercials, but wait…there’s more! Just before I met this woman; I endured on two consecutive Wednesdays, occupying my favorite chairs at the bar no less, an equally charming metrosexual couple, who, among other inanities, assured everyone within listening distance (sometimes the wife would pull the string on her husband’s back that made him talk) that they couldn’t understand all the fuss those evil crazy Republicans were making about the Muslims, when, after all, we all know the real danger to America are those contemptible Christians.
Wow!! really?? I must have missed all those times then when the Baptists rounded up some Catholics, beheaded them, and then circulated the videos on the internet. Or the day a New York city landmark vanished, killing thousands, after the Methodists crashed into it with a hijacked plane. Little did I know, in a world filled with terrorist attacks committed by radical Muslims, in Spain, England, Indonesia, and the United States among others, that the greatest menace to western civilization is Americans who go to church on Sunday. The things you can learn from liberals!
Now, I know what you’re thinking. And you’re wrong. I do not start these conversations. I have witnesses that I do not start these conversations. I take a book when I go to dinner, and attempt to sit quietly reading, minding my own business, and drinking my wine, at least until Lucy turns the lights down too dim for me to continue reading. I consciously try to avoid these conversations, knowing what kind of people seem to be around here, and knowing my own shortcomings vis a vis the amount of drivel I’m willing to listen to before I put a none too polite end to it. And it certainly isn’t that I don’t enjoy an intelligent conversation….I’d relish one if I could actually find one. But parroting cliches heard on CNN, or repeating asinine conspiracy theories read on the internet, DOES NOT constitute intelligent conversation.
Perhaps, before I give up on O Bistro altogether, (after all, the food and service are really good) I’ll try moving from the bar to a table. A table for one.
Some days, I really miss Spankys in Georgia.
