Grocery Store Assholes

I am my father's daughter when it comes to people avoidance: ATMs, pay-at-the-pump, online registrations, scan-it-yourself express lines...all cater to those of us who would prefer to get most of our business done without the necessity of interaction with strangers. When I was scouting out furniture stores looking at new sofa possibilities, I tried and tried but always failed to get in the door and past the scrum of waiting salespeople without the obligatory (hoping for your commission) introductory attack:
"Are you looking for anything particular today?"
Just looking, thanks.
"Well we're having a big sale right now, blah diddy blah blah..."
Okay, thanks.
"I'll let you walk around for a bit and will check in with you later. Let me know if you need anything, I'm Phil."
Thanks, Phil.
and then, sigh, obligatory handshake. Not only forced chatter with strangers but forced touching with strangers.

My boyfriend anticipated these uncomfortable conversations much more savvily than I, choosing to don a ratty concert t-shirt with some sort of skull graphic along with not-the-freshest of pants. I made the mistake of showering and automatically became the target for every Phil's best-sale-ever diatribes.

So I'm not the sort of person who looks for conversational openings with strangers, who chucks a "wow, long line" to others queing, who queries "wonder when it will stop raining" of unknowns. I keep my head down, always avoid eye contact, and couldn't be any more in love with the scan-it-yourself line at the grocery store (although this love also speaks to my childhood fascination with playing 'store').

I'll engage in the necessary pleasantries with an appropriate smile to well-meaning strangers, but I was taken aback at the grocery store this weekend when smug-middle-aged-guy commented on my outfit. Apparantly he was offended, or just-jokingly-offended, by my sartorial expression of fandom. On the day that UNC was playing in the Elite Eight, while I was in the home state of UNC, while I was twenty miles from UNC, while I continued to be a UNC graduate, I dared wear a UNC t-shirt. To the grocery store!

Now, the twenty mile distance I live from Chapel Hill happens to place me in Raleigh, home to NC State University. I can only assume smug-middle-aged-guy-loitering-around-the-bread was a State fan, and a Carolina hater, as he stared at me and said "It takes a loyal fan to wear a shirt like that in these parts".

As we all know, in situations like this the witty and scathing and brilliant comebacks occur to you long after the exchange is over. If I had it to do all over again I would have said something along the lines of "Oh, is State playing today?" or "Did State make the NCAA tournament?" or, most harshly "Huh, I didn't think State even made the NIT". But, I'm not a hater. I don't have anything against State. When UNC plays them, I want the Tarheels to win, but that is the extent of my feelings for or against the Wolfpack.

So I was, as I said, taken aback that this random stranger who is a fan of a team whose season has ended and is not in the tournament would openly attack me for support of a team with a number one seed in the tournament, playing that day. Like by cheering for my alma mater, located just down the road, I was spitting in the face of Raleigh State fans. And as jokingly as he may have believed he meant it, his words, as written above, are nothing short of a threat. Like I could get my ass kicked for such an offense? And really, "in these parts"? Like we're in some dangerous wild west where offending the local gang could get me killed?

Not having the benefit of witty timing in this situation, I responded to his - I'm gonna go ahead and call it a threat - I responded to his threat with a friendly smile and "You gotta represent." To which he derisively sneered "You sure are with that shirt" as if my outfit was some insane glorification of fandom, and not a simple blue t-shirt with "Carolina" written on it.

All I wanted was some fucking bread, dude. I didn't come to the grocery store to have an ACC battle of fan loyalties while my rosemary olive oil loaf was being sliced. Not to mention the raging bachelorette party hangover I was pushing my way through to pick up some gametime snacks. So fuck off. That's what I should have said - skipped right past the State jibes, looked him in the face, and just said Fuck Off Asshole.

Wow, that would have been awesome.