Fun with Racist Old Men

A couple months ago during the summer, which in Desert, Utah they are hotter than the middle pits of hell, I was driving around  running errands and listening to my tunes. After an hour of driving in my sauna, I decided it was time to take a break and get a drink. Before I pulled in, a song came up on my MP3 player that always makes me smile.

DVD Fun Fact: I love Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch's "Good Vibrations."

Be still my beating heart.

This is probably one of the worst songs ever made. It is cheesy, goofy and it is 'sung' by Mark Wahlberg before he was an amazing actor. Never the less, it is one of my favorite songs. I pulled into the gas station and hopped out. I was still smiling and humming Mr. Wahlberg's ridiculous shanty and walked in.

Inside the gas station was the usual cast of characters; creepy milk lady, toothless hobo picking out beer, and grumpy ol' veteran. The lady working the counter was short, surly and Native. I understood, she worked an awful job that paid little money. Typical Native job. After checking out the cast of characters in the joint, I walked back to the pop (what brown people call soda) and grabbed me an ice cold Coke. I stopped by the nut section and thought about grabbing a bag of peanuts, but decided against making my drink extra classy.

"Hello again."

I mosey'd on up to the counter, still grinning like an idiot over that amazing ballad, and planted my pop on the counter. Standing next to me was the Veteran Vick grumbling about the Jews and how they have made gum so expensive. As Native Checker rang me up, I noticed that the Veteran Vick kept eyeballing and I would steal a couple glances. Vick finally said something;

"You sure smile a lot for an Indian."

I am FUELED by racism!

Native Checker and I both stopped what we were doing and looked at each other. We saw the twinkle in each others eyes, recognizing that we have been through this kind of racism before. Or because we were both drunk on hand sanitizer. Whatever.

Luckily Native Checker had my back and she ripped into Veteran Vick with her sing songy rez accent, who I could tell they knew each other.

"Vick, you stupid old bastard. Indians can smile too! White people don't own smiles."

I started laughing, put my hand on Veteran Vick's shoulder and told him that we can laugh too. Vick was upset and stormed out, mumbling out racial slurs. Native Checker and I shared in the laughter. One thing that unites Indians is humiliation of white people.

"This racism is killing us inside!"