bronwynrh | What is up with the whackos?

So my parents are apprenticing at a nursery outside of Houston. My parents are doing this because they enjoy it and they want to open up their own nursery. This is their way of learning the ropes. They have their own retirement fund, but the market sucks and this job is like extra income that just supplements what they've already got. They are smack in the middle of the middle class.

According to the tax laws, that means they're rich.

The other day, dad helped a woman load up her car. An older, lesser-model Mercedes. When he finished, the woman asked dad his shoe size. He told her and asked her why. Indicating a number of sets of shoes in the back seat of her car, she said that she was about to make a donation to Goodwill. Could he use a pair of these shoes?

I guess she didn't notice the solid gold Rolex that graces my dad's wrist, a watch that he has worn for more than a decade since we lived overseas.

(No, you presumptuous bitch, I don't need your shoes)

I think he declined her offer more graciously than I would have, but it was insulting and presumptuous and certainly NOT charitable.

Yeah, because charity is meant to humiliate the person you're giving to, right? Fortunately, after my dad got over the initial sting to his pride at the woman's assumptions, he realized that the problem was hers, not his, and he was able to laugh about it.

And then just today, my mother was verbally assaulted by a couple of hippie-types (I'm saying this to give you a visual, because apparently they looked to fit the stereotype of appearances and then behaved appropriately) in the parking lot of our local green-market. Patchouli-scent, long skirt, sandals, dread-locks, the whole picture of full-on granola stereotype.

She'd taken the Suburban (more out of habit on this particular errand than necessity, although she's been hauling all day) to pick up some poppy seeds, and after encountering smiles and friendliness and happiness inside, she came out to get into her car. There, she was confronted by two adults with their small children. The adults cussed at her and insulted her for driving an SUV, for coming from Texas and god only knows what else. I wish I'd been there to tell them to back off and set a better example for their children.

Mom, not feeling obligated to defend herself, and not feeling it was appropriate to fight in front of children, told them that she is in town to visit her daughter and that she is patronizing local shops - extensively - and that her SUV is of great assistance in that endeavor. And then she left, shaking like a leaf.

Assholes.

Never mind that she uses that SUV most often for hauling dirt, mulch, lumber, pots, plants and all sorts of stuff that you can't fit into a pinto hatchback. Never mind the fact that she spends most of her life beautifying the world around her and teaching other people how to do the same.

I wonder if we can say the same for the people who assaulted her.

I say again. Assholes.

I'm going home.