Golden Moments in Hypocrisy

To me, hypocrisy isn't about the minor falling down we all do from time to time. Most people want to be good people and activley strive to go through the world causing as little harm as they can, but everyone has bad moments. Suddenly the tight rein we keep on our "inside voice" slips and we say something needlessly mean. Perhaps we indulge in some "justice" by walking by the loaf of bread the lady ahead of you drops out her grocery bag because the annoying cow took cuts in the check out line and didn't even say pardon me. But these kinds of things are the failings of people who at least try. So I suppose I shouldn't be so quick to judge the following people. For all I know, they are people who have merely slipped from the path, not the dyed-in-the-wool habitual yet unaware offenders that make the true hypocrite. On the plus side, I have learned how to spell "Hypocrisy". Here are some examples for the connoisseur of public jackassery.

The call came over the intercom asking for more help at customer service just as I passed it with another customer in tow. Sure enough, there were two people clustered around the kiosk, waiting for help. One was an older black man, one of our regulars who is so pleasant we have been known to argue over who will help him. The other was a very old woman weilding a purse I swear was bigger than she was. I wouldn't have thought she had the strength, but I suppose it's never safe to assume that. Anyhow, I showed my person the section she asked for and hurried back to help the next in line. When I arrived I noted a new person at the counter, a young man in a college football sweatshirt and baseball cap whom I was certain had not been there moments before. Taking the customers in order of arrival , I asked the gentleman first and he allowed as how he was already being helped and pointed to the lady behind him as needing help next. She politely told me that she, too, was being helped. I turned to the young man and before I could even ask what I could find for him, his whole face contored in a look of self-righteous anger, like my attention had awakened him from slumber, like he was saving his anger just for me and wasn't about to spend it on thin air.

"Oh, so you'll ask everyone else if they need help before me?!" I'm sure he believed he dripped disdain, but he resembled nothing more than a spoiled child on the edge of a tantrum. Now, if I had any sense at all I would have apologized and moved us along on his errand, but I was just so stunned at this sudden attack. It was like someone angrily informing me that rain falls down. I know I blinked at him for a moment but even in that moment of thinking I couldn't manage to come up with anything better than to say "Well of course. They were here first." This was the old red flag and bull scenario and I was treated to a detailed timeline which barely left out the n-word when speaking of the black gentleman. Strangely, I wasn't mad, even when my own eyesight was questioned. I began to feel some sympathy for the umpire having dirt kicked at him over the plate. Mostly I kept thinking to myself geez, this guy is going to yell at me for the next ten years and still expect me to help him find a book. When he stopped for breath I quickly asked what I could help him find. "I want the Christian section" he snarled at me. I managed not to comment that his soul obviously needed more help a mere book could provide and I listened calmly as he berated me personally for the store moving the Christian section 'all the time' ( it was once. Two years ago). I so badly wanted to ask him WWJDIABS? As in, What would Jesus do in a bookstore. To be fair, I would be making just as much fun of the twit if he asked me for the Buddhist section. I may be a hypocrite, but I'm not prejudiced about religion.

I have two more beautiful examples of Jackus Assius in their natural habitat, but I'll put those down in the next post. Don't worry, I won't forget. I take notes.