Help! Help! I'm Being Repressed!

***Editor's Note*** For those who don't want to bother to read this, an audio version done by the author is provided below. Mind you, the author had had a few beers before recording and does it badly, but it is provided for those with busy lives who can't spend that much time reading.***

Have you ever been discriminated against? I had not. As a white male living in America it just never happened to me, until recently.

Last weekend, I was working in the bakery and the bell rang signaling that the was a customer at the counter who needed service. As the most junior member of the bakery, it often falls to me to handle the counter and the telephone. I don't mind as I have met a lot of really interesting people this way. I wipe the strawberry juice from my hands on the tail of my apron and go out to answer the bell.

No sooner do I round the corner than the lady at the counter yells out to anyone who may be listening, "Oh great. I got a man!" She spits these words out at me as if to instantly suggest that I am an idiot by my gender alone. She shakes her hatchet-shaped head from side to side, as if she knows that she is going to have to suffer through a long drawn-out conversation with a simpleton, namely me. I am the turd in her punch bowl of life.

"I'm looking for a chocolate cake with chocolate icing," she whines to me as if I am a stupid drooling, snot-nosed child. In her hand is of 7" round layer cake.

"Yes miss," she has to be late sixties,"this a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. This is our Snicker's cake with drizzles of fudge and peanut butter with a sprinkling of salted cocktail peanuts and Snicker's candy pieces. It's quite popular." I'm smiling as I explain to this old battle axe that she is holding a chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

"Well, I saw that it said Snicker's but I didn't know what that was," she sniffs. "C'mere..." She leads me over to the cake cooler. "What the hell is this?" she points. There sits a 7" round chocolate layer cake with chocolate icing.

Still smiling, "This is our Ho-Ho cake. It is a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. It has a layer of French cream between the layers cake, and is drizzled with fudge and French roll vanilla icing, and topped with Ho-Ho pieces." I point out each feature as I name it in the vain hope that this woman will quickly exit my life.

"Whut?" No, it turns out this pain in my ass is going to be sticking around. She looks at me as if I have grown another head. I explain again about the Ho-Ho cake. In detail.

"Well, I saw it said Ho-Ho but I didn't know what that was," she sneered.

Her hatchet nose makes soft whistling noises as she shakes her head again. "Poor, silly, ignorant boy," she thinks to herself as she leads me over to the other cake cooler. "What's this?" she points as she growls.

"This is our 8" round single layer cake. It too is a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. The top is covered in melted fudge icing, given five good dollops of chocolate butter cream icing and finished with chocolate Hershey's kisses." She glares at me as if I blatantly lying to her. She is steamed and stomps over to the freezer. She crooks her finger as she does it, as if beckoning a naughty dog who is about to be slapped with the newspaper. "What's this?" She seethes.

"This is our 1/4 sheet almond cake, done in white butter cream icing and decorated with blue and green roses. It's ideal for a man's birthday. Feeds 15 and sells for $15.99. We would be happy to write on it for you for no extra charge."

"Does it have almonds in it?" I think I see her forked tongue lick her lips but it may have been just a trick of the florescent lighting.

"No, it is a yellow cake flavored with almond extract. It is subtle and has a wonderful flavor at the finish and is best served with coffee or tea." I am totally winging it here. I have never tasted the almond cake and have no idea what it tastes like but I am willing to concoct any story I can to send this rude woman on her way. I am trying desperately to be kind and civil to this woman, but her attitude and body language suggest nothing but scorn and disgust. She is revolted by me.

"I'll think about it..." and she dismisses me with a wave of her hand as if she had suffered as much of me as she could take.

I return to the counter and sell a few doughnuts to the fat guys who are waiting patiently there. They say please and thank-you's as I hand them their cruellers with nuts. As they shuffle off to the sea food counter to check out the price of scrod, I see the battle axe load up the Ho-Ho cake, the Snicker's cake, and the 8" Hershey's Kiss cake into her cart and she stomped off down the milk aisle and shook her head as if it was a bad business altogether, much like the time she gave Herbert Hoover a blowjob on the train.

Needless to say, I was miffed.

I was miffed, stymied, frustrated, and more than a little pissed off. I wanted to kick this woman in the shins really hard. I have been called every name in the book and there are a few of them that perhaps I've earned, but I have never been so masterfully scorned before. I t was as if my very presence was enough to make her want to retch.

I returned to my task of making cherry-filled cupcakes and repeated the story to the girls I was working with. I am the only man in the bakery by the way. I tell the tale and they literally gasp and jaws hang slack until I'm finished.

Silence hangs for a moment.

My buddy Phillis pipes up, "You should have told her that the 280 pound lesbian nympho would be more than happy to help her!" I admitted that that hadn't occurred to me.

Doc



Happy Father's Day you Mothers!