Too Angry To Talk Politics

By Columnist TRB - I am too old to get into fights - doesn't matter whether it's a physical fight or a screaming argument. I just don't have it in me anymore. So I don't usually discuss politics when I'm out - especially with some White men who have yet to receive the message that we live in different times. Some of these guys are from the "White is right" crowd. Others are just gullible. These are tough times for Obama supporters. The polls have him in a tie with Romney, who is speeding up his inevitable "march to the middle," his "etch-a-sketch," find-out-what-they-want-and-say-you're-all-for-it brand of politics, otherwise known as the Big Lie. He is a good con man. You have to give him that. He could steal a pint of your blood and sell it back to you.

I was sitting at a table in a restaurant the other day eating fish and chips and this guy in his forties, I'd say, took a seat in the booth on the other side of my table. Normally, someone would ask if they could do that or enquire as to whether or not somone else was sitting there. Not this guy. He said hello to me as though he knew me or knew of me. I have been writing in these parts off and on for more than 40 years and I often meet people whom I don't know, but who believe they "know" me.

I continued to eat.

"Doing much writing?" he said suddenly. I told him that I had cut my column down to two or three times a week.

"Sick of reading yourself, huh?" he said in what I am sure he imagined was a very clever dig.

"Yeah, that must be it," I agreed.

"What are you going to do if Romney wins?," he asked, as if I would have some life-choices that would have to be made immediately should Romney win in November.

"Life will go on." I said. I could tell he was disappointed with the answer. He was looking for an argument and I wasn't going to give him one.

"He's the better candidate," he said now, not willing to give up easily.

"Maybe," I replied.

I had taken a Fosinapril (blood pressure med) shortly before his arrival and it was just now kicking in, making me a little sleepy, making me yawn. I could see that he was upset with the yawning, probably thought it was affected, a way of demonstrating my boredom. He was angry.

It's funny - 20 years ago I would have been deep in a serious and tense argument with the rude man who sat across from me the other day. I would not have been able to resist. It would have been a total waste of time.

And it would have meant nothing.