Last week on my way home from a particularly tough midnight shift, which lasted until 10:30, I stopped in at a Second Cup to wind down, have a strong cup of something hot and read the newspaper. It had been a freezing night. I was cold and tired but not quite ready for bed. I entered the coffee shop in my grubby winter work jacket, my boots and my unkempt toque-head and unshaven, red face. I may have looked a sight to some of the suburban folks sitting, but I took no notice. All I wanted was that hot cup of coffee and my copy of the Edmonton Journal.
I was about most of the way through the front section, reading the Op-Ed pages when a man in a nice suit came over and started thumbing through the other sections of my paper, which I had left on the chair beside me. I looked up a little startled, as if to ask what he was doing. He looked back and said, "I'm goining to take the Business Section; you're not going to read it!"
I thought I must have heard him wrong and asked, "What?"
"Well," he condescended, "you're not going to read the Business Section, are you?"
Ahhh, I thought, he doesn't think some bum in a work-style coat, wearing big safety boots and looking as dishevelled as I did that morning would have any interest in the financial pages of the paper.
"Oh, I get it," I nodded. "You don't think someone like me would read the Business Section. Is that it."
"Well," he stammered, "I just assumed...."
"You assumed that because I look like this, I'm too uneducated to be able to understand or care about economics." "Well, here's the deal," I continued, "you can have the business section while I'm finishing off the Front Section and the City Section. However, once I'm done, I will want the Business Section of the paper I BOUGHT."
"Oh, I'm sorry," he retreated. "I didn't mean to say that you couldn't understand economics." Then he put the paper down and walked away.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I did like my mother told me and got a good education. I just happen to like working outside better and have chosen labour over the inside jobs I used to do.
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To me he was the uneducated man
ReplyDeleteHello I stumbled on to here and liked your post
If one realizes the most well off vote conservative by and large
And that the conservatives by and large (before harper) were for frugal government and people voted for them just because of that party's effect on their taxes with that policy
They get to give less as the more enriched...nice
It seems education formally does the same kind of thing
Creates a class structure like politics
Better educated means higher economic rewards are just due kind of attitude
Studentloaniosus disease
Then I remember one can also get a degree in Madonna the singer somewhere out east and yes the fog lifts
I would say the ignorance and non educated educated persona of that man was completely obvious and you did better than I would have as with me he would have probably even lost a hand...LOL
Sadly I find you cant educate the educated most times
Now Edmonton is a lunch box town though
compared to Calgary mind you ....LOL
So he was probably just from Calgary...LOL
And
Some people forget that for the majority of our probable existence as a society...or better yet how about the fact they never find cloths just bones in an archaeological dig site (yes I know... thats not the point)
For all anyone can prove.... we all walked naked
Something I believe going back to would improve all our lots in life these days.
Although the restaurant business would probably most certainly suffer...LOL
PS
I could never do another Alberta or Saskatchewan winter...EVER AGAIN...thats just craziness
Cheers William
Shavluk
Thanks, John.
ReplyDeleteEvery winter I think I can never do another, too... then they sneak up on me and I'm still here.
He was wearing Oxfords eh!!! Well then this poor fella was likely unemployed and wanted the business section to look for a job.
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