The Last Straw

After the wonderful Muppets movie, I decided I needed some oil and get that brake light fixed, so I went over to Jiffy Lube. "Would you like your headlights buffed?" they asked. Well, the headlights have been looking pretty cloudy, so I said yes.

Turns out, it was an impossible task. They worked for an hour and a half on it, finally gave up, didn't charge me for that part, and gave me half off everything else! Still I was becalmed for awhile, so I decided to walk over and eat lunch at the neighboring KFC.

There was a mix of blacks and whites in the restaurant.  Soon, I realized there was a very strange white woman in the restaurant too. She was sitting by herself and having spasms. She'd wince uncontrollably, rock her head back hard, scrape her chair legs against the floor, and let loose with a volley of sexual insults, apparently aimed at herself, or the voices in her head.  Sometimes she lobbed the N-word at anyone who got too close. I noticed some of the other restaurant patrons shrink away from her corner of the restaurant, and I did too, but the woman would sometimes come over and approach the counter and check on the status of her order.

There was another woman there too, an African-American woman, who eventually decided to take offense at the first woman's behavior. It looked like a calculated decision, like she wanted to yank the crazy woman's chain. I've had some craziness in my family, and one thing I learned was you never, ever yank the crazy woman's chain, especially if she really is crazy, because she will do ANYTHING, and you'd better be prepared for the consequences! Still, she decided to have some sport. The African-American woman decided to object, not based on the plentiful N-words spewing from the white woman, but on the basis of her loud phlegm hawking. "You can call me what you like, but that's just disgusting!"

So, there was a very tense standoff, with both women lobbing B-words, N-words, F-words, and general mental-health insults. Both women seemed to enjoy the confrontation. The long-suffering KFC clerk - "oh, this kind of thing happens almost every day here" - finally called the crazy woman by name, called her over, and gently said "I'm going to have to ask you to leave, and have a nice day." (Which has got to be the most-hilarious thing I've ever heard from a clerk in a fast-food restaurant.) So, the crazy woman left, shouting insults, with the African-American close on her heels, shouting insults and following her onto the neighboring sidewalk, and with customers reaching for cameras for what looked like might be an upcoming brawl.

The crazy woman really did leave, though, so the African-American woman eventually returned. She approached the counter and asked the clerk, "Do you have a straw? I can't believe I gave that pink-assed bitch a straw!" I turned towards her and said, "Was that" - ba-dum-bum - "the last straw?"