Inside the Bubble

This morning Plottie drove out to Treasure Island to play some basketball with the old gang. One of the old guys brought his young nephew and his young nephew brought his large (and young) friend. So you had two really fast kids playing over the rim and everyone else hauling butt to try and keep up.

Plot kept being on losing teams but he also kept hitting his free throws between games which means he kept being able to play in the next game. So he got a good workout, and afterwards drove back to Snowy Valley to the bagel shop.

Then this happened.

(There is objectionable language included because it was an objectionable situation.)

As Plot walked towards the bagel shop, which is owned and run by a Chinese family, he saw the owner out in front of the shop, arguing with an anglo worker who was using a hose on the stairs next to the shop, making it difficult for patrons to enter.

Plottie likes the owner, so he decided to stand in back of him to support whatever was going on.
The whole scene was being observed by at least a dozen people, five babies and four dogs in the little vest pocket seating area in front of the shop.

The worker got angrier and angrier. The owner got angry back. Then, the worker shouted: "Stop being such an asshole!" He turned to the observers and yelled: "I wouldn't even walk inside that goddam store to buy any stupid little rolls from a Chink!!"

Stupid little rolls? That did it for Plotnik. No, just kidding, it was the other part.

He walked over and got in the guy's face -- well he got in his chin, the worker was pretty tall. "Shut your fucking mouth," Plotnik heard himself say. "What's wrong with you, talking like that?"

"But he's an asshole," shouted the worker. "He's always an asshole."

"YOU'RE THE ASSHOLE," shouted a very smartly dressed woman who had left her latte and gotten up to join the argument. "We don't talk like that in this neighborhood. If you can't refrain from expressing your frustration using racial epithets, you need to take your hose to some other vicinity."

Plot is paraphrasing, but that was pretty much it.

The worker, the owner and Plotniks' mouths dropped open and we all turned to stare at the woman.

Plotnik spoke: "Yeah! Like Texas."

And that, my friends, was that. The worker put away the hose, the owner and Plotnik walked into the bagel shop and the woman went back to her latte.

This is how we settle contentious issues Inside the Bubble.