We Have A Resting Place For The Likes Of You

 Borders.  Bayshore Mall in Eureka, CA.  Everyone seems to know that Borders is going under.  If you haven't been paying attention to the news, signs plastered across the front of the store have a daily countdown.  As of yesterday, there were six days left until the store in the Bayshore Mall sold its last young teen vampire book.  As if to emphasize a point that needs no emphasis, the shelves are nearly bare and all the fixtures are up for sale.  You'd have to be an idiot to not know what has been going on.

Enter the idiot.

My daughter and I were trying to make our way through the aisles when we encountered her.  Actually, we were only held up by her and her words.  The man blocking our aisle was the one held up.  He and his partner.  The man who was being questioned by the woman had a large cooling unit of some sort on a hand cart, and this woman was blocking his path.  This woman was in her forties and had a teen daughter in tow.

"Can I ask you a question?" she asked the man.

"Sure.  What is it?" he countered.

This is where things went weird, and my daughter and I got front row seats to it because we were trapped in this aisle.

"Well," she said angrily, "if you put that down for a minute I'll ask you."

"He can't put that down," his partner said.

"I can't put it down," the other man, who was obviously struggling with the weight of the object, added.

"Why not?" she asked.

The man with the handcart said, "I don't work here, you know."

She immediately smiled.  "Oh, I am so sorry.  Everyone says I'm rude."

"You are," I said, but she ignored me.

"I didn't mean it," she continued.

"No worries," he said, moving past her.

She was not ending this, though.  She turned on the partner.  "Can I ask you?"

"I don't work here, either."  It was obvious to me that the men had come to buy some of the fixtures.  I think it would be damn obvious to anyone ... except this self-described rude lady.

She didn't care that he didn't work at Borders.  She wanted to be heard.  And heard she would be.  "How long has this been going on?  What is this?"

Now I was just sticking around to hear this.  It was fascinating.  There were signs everywhere saying what it was.  They were yellow and black.  Huge.  They used words like "closing" and phrases like "going out of business."  It wasn't the fucking Da Vinci Code.

"It's been going on about a month or so," the man said.  "It's a going out of business sale."

"When did this happen?" she pressed.

"I don't know the exact date.  It was all over the news."

"Why is this happening?" she asked.

The man rolled his eyes.  "I don't know.  A lot of people said it was the Internet, but I don't think so."

The woman then said, and I am not kidding.  "No.  It's not that.  I know what it is.  Do you want to know what it is?"

Okay.  Think about this for a second.  A woman who made it obvious she had no idea Borders was going out of business, had no idea how long the proceedings had been going on, and had no idea that a blatant going out of business sale was a going out of business sale suddenly knew the answer as to why the store was going out of business.  If it were me being asked, I would have taken that opportunity to shut the woman down and make a quick exit before any of her stupid rubbed off on me.  Not so for the man she stopped.  He actually asked her what she thought!

I left at that point, telling my daughter that if I ever acted like that woman she had every right to push me out of a moving vehicle.  I was not going to stick around to listen to what I now determined to be Dumb and Dumber discussing the state of Borders.  Even I have my tolerance levels when it comes to amusing stupidity.

In a perfect world, a just world, the willfully ignorant would be made to suffer the outcome of their actions.  They wouldn't be placated.  They wouldn't be given anything other than a passing glance and perhaps a shove out of the way.  As I walked away from her, I couldn't help but think, perhaps wrongly, that she was probably part of the Tea Party Parrots.  Cocksure of nothing.  Positive that their views, based on God-knows-what, were right no matter what evidence spoke to the contrary.  It was wrong of me to think that, but the mindset of that woman is what drives a lot of those Tea Party Parrots.  I've witnessed it firsthand.  I've seen it in their signs ("Government out of my Medicare").  So proud of their ignorance.  So sure of their stupidity.

So if there is anything to remember on this day that many in the media are calling a "Day of Remembrance," it's that there are a lot of dumb asses out there and no amount of tragedy in the world is ever going to get them to open their eyes.