Categorically Correct

It just feels good to know that I’m not always wrong about people.  On my first day as a barback, I was introduced to a scary hairy man who was to train me.  He stood at about five foot nothing, his head coming up to my chest.  He had a ring of closely cropped hair that surrounded a bald spot on the crown of his head.  I guessed he was in his early forties by the lines that etched into his forehead and splintered off the corners of his watery blue eyes.  His face was small and square, a neatly kept goatee surrounding his thin lips.  His clothes were weathered and worn to the point of no longer having structure.  Tufts of hair poked out of his outstretched shirt collar and covered his short, stubby arms.  His voice was loud and carried a country cadence that grated my nerves.  I instantly didn’t like him.  He was too loud, too serious and too creepy when it came to the ladies.  He was a small man but a giant slime ball.  Any time an attractive woman would walk past, he’d make some sleazy remark and then follow them with his eyes as they walked by, an unsettling grin across his hairy lips.  You could just tell he was undressing them with his pervy eyes as the women walked by. 

As I mentioned before, he changed the soda fountain syrup bags like they were IVs and didn’t hesitate to sling the sticky stuff on my newly purchased ninety-five dollar shoes.  He was way too serious about changing the bags and keeping everything squeaky clean.  He also kept telling me every five minutes if I wanted a “drank” I could get a “drank” from the soda fountain and put it on one of the shelves but I was supposed to put it in a certain spot so he wouldn’t mix up the cups and drink after me.  The feeling’s mutual, turd.  I’d hate to choke on some of that his hair while taking a “swaller” of the Sierra Mist.   He was also quick to point out when I made a “booby” as he called it one time. 

“Um, you made a booby earlier over thar,” he shouted, although he was standing right in front of me, close enough that I could count the rough pores that spread out along either side of his hooked nose.  “You got the Diet Dr. Pepper and the reg’lar Dr. Pepper mixed up.  You gotta be real careful.”  Crap.  The guy made me so nervous that I couldn’t help but to make boobies from the intense pressure of trying to do everything just the way he preferred.  This isn’t chemistry, dude.

One day, while the intense man was away, I was sticking my hand through one of those barely accessible cardboard holes to check on the status of the plastic bag’s fluid content when one of the other barbacks came in to check on me.  He was much younger, taller, thinner and smoother than the other man.  His cheekbones prominently stood out in contrast to the rest of his sunken, sloping face.  His lips were round and chapped, his hair slicked down across his forehead and ending in a slight wave.

“How’s it going?” he asked, his voice deep and gravely, reminiscent of a pubescent boy getting used to his new enlarged larynx. 

“Alright,” I said reluctantly.  As much as I wanted to turn to him with my troubles over this new position, I knew I probably shouldn’t unload in front of this stranger ‘cause he’d probably think I was a total freak.  Fortunately, I didn’t have to.  He offered up his own observations on the scary hairy man.

“Nobody in the bar likes him,” he said.  “Everyone talks about him.  And the way he is around the women.”  He closed his eyes and shook his head in a disapproving manner.

I stood there with my eyebrows in knots, half surprised to hear I wasn’t crazy and half jubilant that I wasn’t.

“He’s just so anal about everything,” he added.  My pales eyes lit up as the barback continued to relay his dissatisfaction with the hobbit.

After he left, I felt so much better about the way I felt about the man.  A lot of times, I'm concerned that my general disdain for people might cause me to make swift, unfair judgments of certain individuals.  I admit that I can be pretty quick and pretty harsh in my estimations of others.  I often feel that sometimes I'm being way out of line but when I'm validated like that, it makes me feel like I'm less of a dick.  Furthermore, there's a guy on my team that I've mentioned briefly.  Talk about a dick!  I've had several new teammates come up to me and ask, "Is this guy a smart ass to you, too, or is he just like that to me?"

"No," I replied.  "He's like that to everyone."

Once again, feels good to know that it's not just me, that I'm not totally wrong. 

And that's not to say that I dislike everyone.  Just because I can point out jerks effortlessly doesn't mean I can't finger the friendly folks as well.  In fact, there's two ladies on my team that I genuinely like.  Sure, I might be heartless and have no friends but that doesn't mean I'm a bad judge of character.  I'm not saying I'm excellent, either.  It's just that, I don't know.  Is it just me or does everyone feel slightly apprehensive when someone gets on our nerves?  We know they irritate us but do they irritate anyone else as well?  Are we being too harsh or are we justified in our thinking?  I often feel that maybe I just have a low tolerance for obnoxious behavior but then when people come up to me and confirm what I was already thinking, it's kind of comforting.