After going by the big builders supply and garden supply store to pick up two 16 pound cobblestones for our fledgling X-Marks Bay Area Heavies group.....and getting a very warm reception from the guys, including the hispanic guys....at the store, I went by BevMo. See, I'm probably going to be in charge of purchasing the whiskey for our Burns Supper and I needed to do some market research, see?

Righto..... so I march into BevMo and go to check out the single malts. "No, Alan you can NOT purchase that bottle of MacCallum 18 year. *sigh*" I was good, thought the Aberlourd 10 year for $32 was mighty tempting.

ANY-way, I noticed a guy giving me some funny looks from the end of the aisle, but I didn't think twice about it.

After a while I left the store and walked across the parking lot. I got in the truck, pulled out, and went around the corner. I noticed two of the four Hispanic guys in the car ahead of me turning around in their car to stare at me. Hmmm, that'td kind of odd... When we get out on the main street, we all go about 1/3rd of a block and stop at the light, and there's this guy absolutely going Ape-shiggles on the sidewalk. I mean he's yelling and gesticulating something amazing, and he's not looking friendly. I look around...nobody else here to yell at, so I look at him. Yup, he's yelling at me.

Now understand, this isn't just "yelling", I mean he's practically jumping up and down. He's waving his arms, he's starting to get red in the face. Finally I roll down the passenger side window and he screams at me...

His choice of words centered about his feelings concerning a type of man whose sexual orientation differs from his own. There, was that a polite enough way to say it?

Honestly, I was tempted to get out and confront the sucker. I don't usually get aggressive like that, but this was over the top. Tim C will confirm that I'm pretty good at turning the other cheek to the jerks. However, I was in the center lane, three lanes away from the guy, so I just smiled at him and drove on. One of these days someone is gonna go off on me about the kilt and my sexual orientation, though, and someone is gonna get hurt.

And in other news.............................................. ..........................

In preparation for our X-Marks Bay Area Heavies I went to check out the throwing field at the High School I was subbing at on Friday. As I was coming back from the field, walking along the track, one of a little gang of hispanic boys that were by the gym hollered at me.. "Are you gay?"

Knowing that it was about the kilt and knowing that I'd be paying them a little visit in about three minutes, I opted to answer like this....

"Are you Stupid?"...at the top of my lungs so that nobody could miss it. Half of the little clot of guys laughed.

After I climbed out of the stadium I walked straight over to where they were. I walked right into the center of the kids and said. "OK, so now...who has a problem with Me or My kilt?"

Nobody said anything.

Now, I know full well that I'm not going to educate them on how unutterably stupid and ignorant and cruel it is to use "gay" as an invective. I mean, they're not going to hear it if I preach to them. So instead of that I said, and pardon the language but this IS what I said to them....

"I see. So you p**sies will shout at someone from across campus when it's safe, but when that same guy is right here in your face, you won't stand up to him, will you? Next time you want to give me s**t, do it to my face."

Whereupon one kid...BEHIND me... made a comment about me being GAY.. I turned around and of course nobody would say who it was. So I sat down at the table that was right there, shoved a couple of books off to the side and put my arm up to arm-wrestle..... "OK, so who here is enough of a MAN to take on the f**gott in the SKIRT?" Nobody moved. I gave them a nice long thirty-forty seconds to respond.....nothing.

So I told 'em..."next time you think you're a big hardass and you can yell abuse at someone because you're so tough, remember that there's ALWAYS somebody out there that's a bigger badass than you are. You won't get far, calling people names and disrespecting them because they look different from you...

But if you open your brain up and treat people with respect and listen to where they're coming from, you might learn something worthwhile."...and then I headed off to class.

It'll be interesting to see what happens if I have any of those kids in class this week.