my sweet rapture
Yesterday at work, four middle-aged, South Side black guys(please don't make me add in, "no, dude, I didn't mean it like that-my best friend is black") came in, all wearing various forms of blue-collar dress---work shirts, overalls, hard hats. They all seemed really tight with each other, and were having a loud, lively conversation about the old neighborhood, politics, basketball, and current events. After ordering two large pizzas, one with 1/2 pepperoni, well done b/c he don't like no soggy pepperonis, one Hawaiian, the conversation turned to Michael Jackson, and how jaw-droppingly freakish and guilty he is, and there was some amusing speculation on exactly how long he would last in prison. Then:
Guy #1: I heard he was even messing with disabled kids.
Chorus Of Guys: No way! That's sick! Etc etc.
Guy #1: I mean, it's bad enough to be messing with kids. But messing with disabled kids? He be getting them out of their wheelchairs and shit? Touching their little bald cancer heads? Oh damn, it makes me sick.
Me [trying really, really hard not to laugh]: ...
Guy #1 [looking at me, also starting to laugh]: Am I right? Isn't that sick? Michael Jackson messing with disabled kids?
Me: Oh, it's sick. You got that right.
Guy #1: Disabled kids. Damn.
Then we were both laughing, for hard-to-explain reasons, and soon the pizzas were done and we exchanged first names and he called me "baby girl" and told me to have a good day, and I wished him the same, and it was just a nice little stranger-bonding moment. It is slightly unfortunate that the nice little stranger-bonding moment took place in the context of the alleged sexual abuse of disabled children by a batshit-insane hideously deformed skeleton of a multimillionaire, but there you go.
Guy #1: I heard he was even messing with disabled kids.
Chorus Of Guys: No way! That's sick! Etc etc.
Guy #1: I mean, it's bad enough to be messing with kids. But messing with disabled kids? He be getting them out of their wheelchairs and shit? Touching their little bald cancer heads? Oh damn, it makes me sick.
Me [trying really, really hard not to laugh]: ...
Guy #1 [looking at me, also starting to laugh]: Am I right? Isn't that sick? Michael Jackson messing with disabled kids?
Me: Oh, it's sick. You got that right.
Guy #1: Disabled kids. Damn.
Then we were both laughing, for hard-to-explain reasons, and soon the pizzas were done and we exchanged first names and he called me "baby girl" and told me to have a good day, and I wished him the same, and it was just a nice little stranger-bonding moment. It is slightly unfortunate that the nice little stranger-bonding moment took place in the context of the alleged sexual abuse of disabled children by a batshit-insane hideously deformed skeleton of a multimillionaire, but there you go.