Enough (Not in a JLo Kind of Way)

The grocery store is one of the least threatening place to be.

Or, is it?

The electric doors slide open; my wife heads through another set of doors while I head left to grab a cart. I haven't noticed, but there is a disagreement developing between two men.

I start to head through the second set of doors and hear the man behind me say:

FAGGOT!

The word, dripping with disdain, not directed at me, creepy-crawls its way up my spine, swings from my brain stem like it's playing a cruel game of keep away, and finally lands on my head like a large piece of excrement. Just as it was intended for the other man who kept walking.

I can feel the rush of blood in my veins. I hear this shit all the time on television, in movies, from religious followers, in politics (though politicians never use derogatory terms so blatantly; they are far more underhanded when it comes to insulting gays and lesbians). I need to make a decision. I can either be the change I want to see in the world, or I can keep walking.

I turn around to find an older white male, his black hair thick on his head, his stomach rotund, wearing a dirty t-shirt tucked into his large pants. I say, very calmly (I'm not kidding: I am quite calm,) "Faggot? Really?"

He is not amused. His nostrils flare. He face reddens. The look on his face suggests he would kill me if there weren't witnesses. The silence becomes more and more awkward. The wife at his side keeps looking down at the ground. She will play no part.

Okay. I guess we are done here.

I walk through the second set of doors and he tells me to mind my own business, calls me a bitch. A bitch? No, no. Anything but that. Why can't I be a faggot, too?

"Okay. Whatever you say, big man."

My wife is standing there, looking puzzled. And then he really let's me have it. "Oh, are you a dyke? Fucking dykes!"

Now, that's more like it.

Unlike his wife, my wife does get involved. "Proud dykes, thank you!" she announces as she takes my arm.

We are too far away from him to reach out and strangle us, so instead, he turns his hand into an imaginary gun, aims, and fires at us both.

Someone forgot to take their Zoloft.

Despite the round of fire we have just taken, my wife and I laugh all the way to the fresh vegetables.

My wife says she is proud of me. I am proud of me too. Whether or not he thinks twice about calling someone a faggot again is out of my control. I just couldn't let him simply get away with it. It was one more thing that felt like enough.