Manners

I am having a hell of a time being a racist, lately. I just walked a half a mile to the bank to put ten bucks in my account, to get it above zero. In the course of doing that, I had to cross the street (US 41) a time or two, observing all laws and punching all buttons on the traffic-signal gizmos.

While crossing, I make a point of staring at the heads of guys and gals in cars who are in a position to run me down and kill me. This serves two purposes:

1.It catches their attention and lets them know there's a pedestrian in the crosswalk, and

2. It lets them know that if they do run me down and kill me, we'll be looking each other in the eye when that occurs.

So, I stared at this guy in a car. He yelled at me, something like "Whatsamatter, dude!" in an ear-hurting midwestern accent. No manners, there.

I continued toward the house, and stopped at the 7-11, where the counter was manned by a polite person from Haiti. I said to him, "Do you know the difference between people from Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan, and people from Haiti?"

I answered before he could: "People from Haiti have manners."

We both had a good laugh.