Some names have been changed to protect the rude, but now it's official, Gary's a cracker! The other day Gary went to the bank, dressed as you see him, driving his new (to him) pickup. We sold his car since it was too hard to get in and out of (with his bad shoulder and my bad back) and bought a older pickup for less money, maybe a little less on mileage, but much less for insurance. Well I digress.
Anyway he got out of his pickup and was walking to the front door of the bank and a woman (not a lady) drove up and parked next to his truck in her brand new, pearl white cadillac. She parked taking up two spaces even though Gary said he was parked within the parking space lines. To be fair to how the story unfolded his truck was angled just a little bit within the lines of the parking space where the next car had to be creative at parking their car.
At least an 80 year old woman kicked open her car door (yes, she kicked open the door of her cadillac), got out in a huff, and said to Gary and I quote "You're a f-ing cracker!" This is a family oriented blog so I've had to leave out a few letters, but you can fill in the blanks with the letters. But no, the woman didn't leave any letters out of the word at all.
Nothing seems to rile Gary, thank goodness because he balances out my (at times) volatile personality. Gary's also one of those people who can say just about anything and people never seem to mind. If this situation had happened to me, I'd have been mad as a hornet. In fact, I can recall a day a few years back where a similar incident happened to me and got me really riled. Just thinking of it today makes my blood pressure go up a few notches. But I'll save that story for another post.
Anyway Gary says to the woman, "What makes you think I'm a cracker?" The woman looks Gary up and down, meaningfully, and says, "Just look at the way you're dressed and what your driving, a pickup truck, and you're shabby looking, that's how I can tell".
So in a style that can only be called Gary, he slowly and calmly turns to the woman, looking her up and down and taking in the newness of her cadillac. I'm almost positive there was a pause in his demeanor where the receiving person, the woman, waited on baited breath for what she expected to be an equally rude comment to spew from his lips.
Gary quietly says to the woman, "Well you're just an old bat". The woman abruptly stopped in her tracks since I'm sure she was poised, ready to pounce on an expected cussing match in the parking lot. She was so flustered she turned around and got back in her car and peeled out the parking lot at warp speed, forgetting she'd intended to go to the bank.
Gary went into the bank and told the teller the story about being called a cracker, and the teller said, "Congratulations". When Gary got home he relayed the story to me explaining he could say "old bat" to the woman since he's now a senior citizen too, implying he wasn't being disrespectful. Only Gary would be thinking of the other person's feelings at a time like that.
It's really going to be hard to live with Gary for a quite some time since he's preening his feathers and puffing them up proudly wherever he goes. You see Gary considers being called a Florida cracker a compliment. Especially since we've only been living in Florida such a short time. Gary even asked me if he should switch his customary attire from his baseball cap to his cowboy hat.
