Stupid People
part 1 – Bertha Butt and the Rose Bushes
We live across the alley from a huge church with a daycare. The are times when the kids wave at me as I am leaving in the car, their little hands waving and big smiles on all of their little faces. Other than those few occasions, this arrangement is a huge pain in the ass.
People, who drop off and pick up their kids for the daycare, park in the middle of the alley or pull over to the side of our yard to park, thus trampling our rose bushes and smashing the grass. This happens on Sundays during service, too, but the day care parents are by far worse.
Yesterday as the the end of a long day of packing and moving neared, Gray and I pulled in to the alley beside our house. He was driving his dad’s truck, and as we rounder the corner into the alley, there it sat. Here was a guy, sitting there, car parked smack dab in the middle (directly, for those of you who are not Southern) of said alley.
I saw Gray’s face start to turn a salmony-pink. He honked the horn. The driver’s head popped up, glancing in the rearview mirror. The car cranked, the tail lights lit up, he started pulling forward and to the right. Yup. Right on the rose bushes.
Gray, whose face was going from blushing-bride to winded-pitcher, rolled his window was down so he yelled, “Hey, don’t park on my rose bushes!” At this point, the car was turned off and the head had popped back down. Enter stage right, his wife, Bertha Big Butt, and two sons. They looked to be most likely 5 and 9 years old and were being dragged across the street to the car.
Bertha looked into Gray’s window and said rather sternly, “He’s not on your rose bushes and he won’t do it again.” She trudged off, a kids hand in each of hers. When Mrs. Butt crossed in front of the truck she said loud enough for us to hear but not facing the truck, “Asshole.”
All hell broke loose and Gray’s complexion turned from blushing sailor to lobster red. He yelled out his window, “Oh that’s a great thing for you say in front of your kids while you’re standing beside a church! Look! You’re walking all over my rose bushes!”
Bertha looked back up at the truck and said, “No were are not!” At this point she was getting the oldest boy into the car and pulling a thorn out of her calf.
“Yeah you are, ya stupid bitch! You’re all over them!”
“No we’re not!” she bellowed again, kicking one of them in the process.
The youngest boy stopped on his way into the back seat, looked up at Bertha and said, “That man called you a stupid bitch, Mommy.”
She sniffed as if she was deeply hurt and said all pathetic-like, “I know he did baby,” no doubt for Mr. Butt’s benefit. They all got in and drove off. As they did, the youngest Butt boy turned around in his seat and looked at us with huge puppy dog eyes.
Gray was pissed off for about an hour over that. He kept replaying it verbally. Finally I calmed him down. “You saw the kid as they were leaving, right?” I asked.
“Yeah. I saw him staring at me all pitiful like that.”
“Well, sweetie,” I said “that is something that will probably stay with him for a while. One of these days, he’ll be driving down our street and will recall that whole interaction.”
“Maybe.”
“And you know what he’ll say when he does?” I continued. “That guy was right. She was a stupid bitch.”
On December 23, 1888 Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, fellow artists and friends, had an arguement. During this, van Gogh reportedly threatened Gauguin with a knife.