I knew the moment I slid out of the back seat of a fox’s taupe Kia that the woman in the parking lot was evil. She had a sour look on her face, as if she just sucked the life out of a lemon like a Vegas call girl. I knew right away that she probably had the personality of a chainsaw. She eyed us and then took a marching stance and raced us to the entrance of the cellular phone store.

I could smell trouble in the air the moment we pulled the door open and there was a cluster of folks waiting for service. The crowd seemed like they were overflowing with Christmas spirit, you know, moody as charcoal and chock full of frustration. I stuck close to my wife for protection because she’s the beautiful tough one. She stands up for what’s right.

The voice of the stern woman from the parking lot suddenly rose above everything else as she spoke to one of the salespeople as if she were at an angry political protest.

“This is about my business account. I want someone competent!” she whined for all to hear. “I am tired of waiting on the phone for three or four hours just to get someone who doesn’t speak English!”

Oh, boy, I thought.

My wife turned to look at me and gave me the closed eyes shake of the head. We both can’t stand this type of obnoxious, self-righteous, ignorant and bigoted ass hat with a skewed sense of entitlement. Especially at Christmas. Merry Christmas, Karen! Santa Claus hates you.

Why is she yelling at the poor guy who’s just trying to make a meager living selling cell phones? Gee whiz, Karen. Why don’t you go shake your fists and yell at the corporate gods who outsource those types of jobs to foreign countries in the first place. Despite what you may think, Karen, they don’t really care about you and all your frivolous first-world problems. Not at all. It’s about the money. Only the money. Consider taking an international business course and educate yourself about the world around you, Karen. But then again, I suppose if you had a professor from Suriname, you’d lose your shit.

The funny thing is the guy she ended up have help her had a foreign accent and look about him. Serves you right, Karen. Good god, be a human being for once in your life.

But she was fuming. She was rabid. Having to stand there and listen to her continuous berating of the clerk as he feverishly worked to solve her problems (which were most likely due to her own ignorance) was like going down a scorching hot metal playground slide littered with broken glass and landing in a giant tub of rubbing alcohol. It stung.

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Side note: In my days, most of the playground equipment we had was made of metal, like pipes strung together, and why did no one ever realize that was pretty dangerous. Anyways, the slide parts of our playground slides were metal as well, slick aluminum maybe? Not sure. But in the summer the metal would get very, very hot and burn your skin when you went down. Painful childhood memories indeed.

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I tried not to listen to the woman, but that was difficult because she was at the counter right next to where we were being helped by a full-on white American dude who was very competent in doing his job. I bet Karen was so jealous.

I myself am always shocked by the behavior of some people in public. But then again, I’m not. I would never in my life consider raising my voice to a clerk in a store, especially spewing commentary peppered with bigotry aimed toward people who happen to live and work in another country. The world is way bigger than you and your phone problems, Karen. Get your head out of your ass and take a look around.

I know I’m being pretty salty about this whole situation, but why shouldn’t I be. It pisses me off when people act this way. Most of what is wrong in this world stems directly from how horrible human beings treat each other on this planet – a huge space we all share.

All one has to do is look at the news or scroll through Facebook or Tic Tac Toe or whatever social media platform is hot at the moment and a lot of what you see is nothing but people casting hateful jabs at one another.

From Russia jabbing Ukraine to Karen jabbing the phone store clerk and all the other jabs in between, there’s a lot of hateful, petty bitterness in the air. And for what? Why? Why are we killing each other!? For what!? So you can get a little more for yourself while your neighbor gets tossed in a mass grave? Ugh. I don’t understand. All we have is each other, yet we act as if we don’t care.

Well, that took a dark turn. But in my mind, Karen is no better than the Vladimir Putins of the world. No better at all. Their pointless wars are just smaller. My only solace at times is that I know I have the love of a wonderful woman and everything she is and does.

So, Karen, wherever you are right now, I’m sure you are totally oblivious to the fact you made a complete ass of yourself and that myself and many others in the phone store that day think very little of you. I’m sure you are completely unaware that a complete stranger has penned a social commentary piece based solely on your ill behavior and dangerous playground equipment. Touche. That’s French, Karen. I’m sure you have a problem with that, too.

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