Let Me Count the Ways I Offend Thee

Sometimes you see things that are just out of the ordinary. Sometimes they are disgusting and sometimes just strange or out of beat with everything going on around you. This fits all of those.

Town Center Mall is a huge mall with a huge parking area surrounding it. As most indoors malls are these days, they appeal to the upscale shopper.

Even in the parking lot you see mostly new shiny expensive cars.

Yesterday, outside Parisians, was an old heap of pickup truck that looked like it came from the 30s. It had no door, the thing had mud splatters all over it… and it appeared not to have sides on the pickup’s bed. Several Confederate flags of the stars and cross bars were on the truck.

There were about 5 or 6 young people in their early 20s or late teens, all hanging around the truck. Men and women. They were dressed in small straw cowboy hats, and sort of rough and tough Levis and body shirts. They were playing loud country music.

I saw a black lady walk by and she looked nervous and scared. I don’t think they said anything to her, but that didn’t stop her from being scared of the red-neck image she had to walk by, and a group of red-necks at that... groups are dangerous…. They have to out-peer-pressure each other.

I know it is a free country and they had every right to be there, providing they obeyed the rules that that their rights ends where the other person’s rights begins.

But somehow, I think their sole reason there, outside Parisians, probably the most upscale store of an upscale shopping center was to offend. Part of me wants to say, “Go for it!” And part of me wants to say, “Why do you want to offend these people?”