Her intelligent brown eyes glowed, letting anyone watching know very little would go unobserved. She used them like pointers, keeping her hands still on her lap so that her expressive face would not be distracted.
It was her face, really, that started this, a vision of many nations reflecting America’s oft mentioned melting pot, but now pushed aside for the more politically correct salad bowl.
“I’m a mutt,” she told me as I tried to comply with another ridiculous call for labels and tags, in this case a form asking for ethnicity and gender breakdowns in my journalism classes. With Mona I had no choice but to ask; I could see so many imprints across her attractive face that a random guess was bound to fail.
She reported varied parts of Cherokee, Irish, African, and Mexican in her gene pool, although she told of a predominantly Hispanic orientation in San Antonio. The blend, she said, was “kind of neat,” but like most anyone in America, she’d faced her share of racism.
“It doesn’t bother me,” she said in typically resilient fashion, possibly a product of triumph over other adversity and life in a single-parent home, one where an absent father she called “a loser” never visited. But her eyes grew harder and more intense as she thought about being looked at negatively in stereotype. “I’ve lived with it all my life,” she said in words, but indicated in body language, that no one was going to push this girl around.
I thought I’d found an individual incapable of bias, a person so intrinsically linked with so many of us that a natural humanistic harmony would be inescapable. Instead I mined fool’s gold when a writer and teacher like me should have known better.
Like many over-achievers and success stories, and Mona was both of these, she showed little sympathy for liberal social agendas, racial quotas, and excuses written on welfare checks. In fact, she was so ultra-conservative, I broke out of my interview mode and reverted to Sunday school teacher, reminding her of a Christian background and Christ’s call to do right by the least of us. In truth, Mona’s anger frightened me.
She conceded points for compassion, but stuck to her guns on several ideas, one of them calling for forced sterilization of anyone who couldn’t do well on the ASVAB test, a vehicle used by recruiters to sift and reject potential enlistees.
“If the US military doesn’t want you,” she explained, “you’re worthless.”
“I’ve had it with stupid people,” she continued, saying that she regularly received calls asking whether the Lone Star Card, Texas’ version of food stamps, was accepted at the ice cream parlor where she worked part time. “These people don’t need five-dollar ice cream,” she said in exasperation.
I gave up searching for the American Dream, deciding instead to slum it a bit and share some common roots, a pint of Irish in my own mutt background.
“How many Irishmen does it take to change a light bulb,” I asked, touching off a smile and sparkle in my interview subject.
“I don’t know,” she played along.
“Two,” I explained. “One to hold the light bulb and one to get so drunk the room starts spinning around.”
We shared a good laugh. I’m still not sure if it was multicultural, but an Irish stew does quite well in a melting pot.
But the exchange started me thinking and I wrote another column to share with her, something along the same line of reasoning, but, I hoped, avoiding the stereotyping that can ruin a good piece. I had an exceptionally solid idea because I’d just met the perfect subject over the weekend. I can’t recall if I ever shared this with Mona, but I will now with you. A little ditty I called “Duh.”
Duh…
Why is it that every time I hear someone start a sentence like this, he or she’s ahead of me in some sort of line? Like the popular Texas comedian, I once thought I’d also encourage stupid signs, if it would do good, but it won’t. What’s worse, I’d probably be required to display the same sign myself.
In this particular case, however, I wanted to hang a six-foot flashing neon caution reading: “Warning: inappropriate, rude, insensitive moron ahead. Proceed at your own risk”
At first, Duh just seemed crudely stupid, a garden-variety oaf unworthy of recall. I didn’t pay much attention to him initially and just scanned the menu board at a local Subway joint.
But Duh was special and soon drew my undivided attention.
“Duh….don’t I know you from somewhere man?” came up after he required the poor sandwich maker to recite the entire menu, printed directly overhead, item by item. Duh frequently stopped him for inquires like “Is it good, man?” further elongating the recitation peppered with gross obscenities while the ten of us behind him in line searched for rope and a tall tree.
But, like I said, this guy was special, and the show grew more entertaining when within the dim recesses of Duh’s mind he finally made a connection with the poor sandwich maker.
“Duh…I know were I met you man. We was in jail together, right? Right…jail…right?”
The poor guy behind the counter nodded.
” Duh…I knew it! I knew it! How you *&^%$$&*! been man?”
The sandwich maker said just fine, thanks, and Duh changed his order, for the third time.
“Hey you know Joe?” Duh continued. The sandwich maker admitted that he did.
“Duh… well, he’s back in jail. Cops got him with a shotgun I sold him.”
The sandwich maker just let that one pass, and tried to wrap the customer service/order making/class reunion up, but was once again redirected by Duh, who wanted several additional items after his bill was totaled and presented.
Being something of a student of human behavior, I concede that I was more than faintly amused by Duh’s performance, but I shared a wider audience. Duh’s two kids, real cuties, a boy and a girl, both apparently pre-school age, hung on Dad’s every word. They watched and listened with us while Duh’s wife, Clueless, stared blankly and unfocused, an approach, I assumed, making it easier to live with Duh.
In the not-to-distant future these children will enroll in school to tackle socialization and fundamental learning. Think they’ll need any help?
Duh.