Saturday, January 30, 2016

Profiling

So I see a young man at the grocery store checkout with a couple bags of Doritos and a pail of ice-cream. "Supper?" I ask him.

He looks annoyed. "It's dessert," he tells me. Then he recognizes me. "How are things at Story Book?" he asks.

I tell him, "Things are always good at Story Book. How about with you?" But he's talked enough. His thoughts are on other things.

But when he leaves, he turns to me and says, "We'll see you later, Jerry."

Jerry lives at Story Book. I live at Story Book. Jerry's bald. I have a beard. I wear glasses. I don't think Jerry wears glasses. But we are both old white men. It's hard to tell old white men apart.

I try to obey the speed limit. Sometime I don't try as hard as other times. I got picked up for speeding in Aurora, Mn three times in about a month. It was the same police officer. He'd come back to my car and look at me, "Having a bad day?" he'd ask. Three times in a row, I couldn't think of a good reply. He would then take my driver's license, start to take it back to his car. Then he'd change his mind and just bring it back to me. "I'm just giving you a warning this time, okay?

"You have a nice day," he'd say while walking away.

He didn't recognize me. Just another old white man.