“Who’s done more research than the good people at the American Tobacco Industry? They say its harmless. Why would they lie? If you’re dead, you can’t smoke. ”
(king pin, 1996)
hello again fellow netw…helloBos readers. Last night I had the pleasure of taking some time out for 10-pin, having hilarious conversation that stemmed from the green fridge joke to the early days of web design, and finally being insulted and belittled because of the color of my skin oh and also being hit on by the bar man.
so really what i experienced last night was how to be a woman and a black. not a black woman, cause well, they were separate occasions.
let’s get started shall we…
So the Wii crew decided that we’d put down the controllers and head for the actual bowling alley. I’d love to say that i had taught them a good ole’ des plaines, we have like 8 bowling alleys (second most successful establishment next to the taqueria), bowling lesson. my friends that wasn’t the case. first of all, I had just gotten done with my gym workout so my right arms was quite sore. second the way the lanes were glazed or whatever you call it, was horrible. it was obvious that you would have needed to practice on their lanes to even come close to getting a good score. Anyway, I didn’t come in last and that’s all that matters.
So we get threw with the bowling and we go towards the bar for a few drinks. I decided I’d pick up this round so I go over to the bar man and tell’em we need a few Heinekens. Now it was probably my accent but right away he knew I was from america. So we get into a little chit chat about how, ‘yes i’m from america’. then he continues on to talk about how all us americans like cinnamon and offers me all these shots that involve some sort of cinnamon. and he wouldn’t back off so i had to tell him, “look, i hate cinnamon so just get us the Heinekens and we’ll think about the shots a little later.” I wasn’t mean about it, but I had to put him in his place…thing about that is, I think he liked it.
Now I’m back at the table, we have our Heinekens, we’re telling jokes, talking about the old days of the internet and our old Angelfire & Geocities accounts and it’s all good fun. What happens next? Our heavy set bar man walks over, puts a couple pints on our table says they’re on the house. Ok cool, I’ll take a free beer, why not. But he doesn’t stop there, he then proceeds to bring us shots, on the house and now i’m thinking, alright let’s take these and get cause clearly, ‘he’s trying to get me drunk.’
Couple beers and a shot later we’ve left the bowling alley/bar and headed for Starlight diner. They have this thing called the Yankee Doodle burger. It’s massive, I’ll post the photo of it soon. Anyway, we reckon we’ll all have one. The burger was massive. it was delicious. but it was all spoiled cause of a real racist incident.
A black woman walks over to our table, she’s drunk and she just starts laughing at us. say’s, “You know what I love about coming to Starlight at night? All you white people get so confused whenever we come over to talk to you and you all look ridiculous.” So my instinct right away is to say “well you know what else is funny, all you blacks look the same to me.” That’s just my wiener circle instinct coming out. But you see, had I said that, the two groups of black people that we were sitting between probably would have made sure I would never have the opportunity to write this blog post.
Anyway, so the racist black woman left and so did we. And I don’t think I’ve ever been on the other end of a racist remark based on the color of my skin. But let me just say this…
I have a dream that my little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. (MLK)
I have a dream that my little children will one day also live in a world where they can laugh in the face of racism and not have to live in this double standard world, where one race can discriminate against others and then start an uproar once they feel the pain they have also caused! (Bos)
