Try As You Might

Single ladies, if you believe you have a big bum, don't be sad about it.
Some boys really like a big bum.
Some boys just love dat ass.

Well, that's my good deed for the day.
What an indication of humanity's scope for being considerate:
Counting the nice things we do so we can reach the cutoff, and stop.
And our cutoff is, as it turns out, one.
Also, some people have a tough time distinguishing a 'good deed' from a 'chore'.
"Well, I mowed the lawn. Time to go cheat on the wife."

Where are my grammar bunnies at?
Did you catch that one?
I put periods and so on outside of single quotes, inside for double quotes.
The latter is right, but I'm not sure about the former.
Fortunately, I don't care.

I did a comedy show in Bridgewater recently.
Besides having a Best Western, there's not much I can tell you about the town.
Went on down there with Blacky, Thomson, and the sexually impressionable Catherine Robertson.
Many of you don't know any of these people, I know.
I'm just sticking their names in there so that I can hope to recall this down the road once I'm senile and this blog is the only relative I have left.
Relatively speaking.
We had a great little time.
The hotel owners were both very lovely, and maybe a bit drunk.
They let us order food and I didn't eat any, which flabbergasted everyone.
If there's one sort of food I find tastiest of all, it's free food.
No one knows this better than my comedy buddies.
I did have a few gins though.
Anyway, one airhead called me a 'faggot' on his way out of the venue.
Some puffy-jacketed, simple man.
He muttered it under his breath as he walked by.
Unless they bellow it from a moving vehicle, they always mutter it.
I wasn't in the mood, really.
It's a staggering thing to hear, but it's hard to place why.
People will say, "Oh, in this day and age, how could someone still say..." and so on.
Which misses the point.
Close-minded people will always be around, no matter what decade it is.
It's just shocking in the sense that I didn't do nothin', y'know?
Like, I get that I'm skinny and I'm wearing my grandmother's shirt, but I talked about banging women onstage.
Was he not convinced, or simply not satisfied?
Anyway, I wasn't in the mood.
So, I said, "What was that?!"
He turned around and acted like he couldn't understand why I was addressing him (this was annoying, too. They always do that.)
Look them right in the eye, let them know it's a challenge.
"Maybe you're the fag!"
Yes, I said that. At this point in the story, everyone so far has stopped me and said, "You didn't say that!"
Yes, I did.
Really, you're sort of doing the same thing as buddy by assuming I wouldn't say that.
"Paul stood up for himself? But he's always been such a pussy."
Now, homosexuals might get bent out of shape that I'm offended at all, since I'm not gay.
Anything that implies homosexuality they sometimes believe is theirs exclusively.
But I'm here to say that if I've spent my life having to put up with shit like this (and I have. Pre-teen. Before junior high. Before sexuality) then I have a right to a reaction.
Besides, he wasn't really calling me gay. He was calling me weak.
And I ain't no Nancy. Not these days.
Besides, as I've told everyone I've recounted the story to so far, these men are gutless.
It's a coward who accuses without meeting one's eye. 
I didn't feel physically threatened in the least. 
So, "Maybe you're the fag!"
He said nothing at first. He didn't expect this, of course.
Then he simply muttered that I was a faggot again and walked away.
Now, what can we take away from this occasion?
"Bridgewater is full of backwater hicks."
Wrong! That's wrong.
I was surprised by how many people said that after the fact.
"Jesus...Bridgewater."
It's not the town. There are cowpokes like this guy in every town, including your own.
The people of Bridgewater were lovely.
So, I guess we'll just have to accept that humans can't handle what's different.
Not just that guy, either. I mean, he's a bit of a dick, obviously.
But all of us have fringes to our comfort zones.
I curse on hippies under my breath and in my head all the time.
So am I any better?
When you strip away the anthropology, the answer is "not really."
So, then, the real question is, why are we this way?
We're all bothered by some group or another, no matter who we are.
Factions or tribes that we would prefer to do without. 
Look at the bigot in yourself (he's in there. He looks and sounds exactly like this guy) and try to figure out where he came from.
Then try to kick him out.
You'll be surprised at how hard it can be to appreciate everyone.
To just say, "Well, that's their thing."
Many of us, especially the arts majors, tell ourselves that we do this.
The artsy-fartsies will tell you how open-minded they are before spending half an hour shitting on jocks.
It's a very special, extremely minute population of humans who truly accept everyone. 
I try with the goddamn hippies. I really do.
But you can't make pants out of yarn and eat food that makes you miserable and then act like you're better than me.
Still, I wouldn't cough, "Hrmph! Goddamn hippies!" while walking past their shanties.
I'd just call them that in the privacy of my own home.