Democracy too hard for you to handle?

At yet another rest stop, this time bordering the mighty Mississippi, a tall, skinny white male truck driver, probably in his 40’s, with an ugly scowling face, approached my truck as I sat in the driver’s seat reviewing a map – yes a real paper map.

“I happen to like bush” he declared in a loud and hostile voice from the back driver’s side of my truck. I swung my door open, peeked my head around the corner to see him and exclaimed “Wow, I haven’t met anyone yet on this trip who has told me that!”  in what I hoped was an incredulous but friendly tone!

“There’s a lot of us here who like bush,” he growled, halting his approach.

“Oh?” I responded, “Well I have met a lot of folks who told me they voted for bush in the last election but certainly were not voting for him in this election!”

He blinks rapidly as I continue. “So, I’m curious, what exactly do you like about bush?”

He backs up a few steps, ignores my question entirely and begins to gesture wildly at the back of my truck – “You, you, you can’t say these things. You need to go back there to that, that, that faggot land of your friend faggots,” he begins. “We don’t want you fags here,” he continues, struggling to even put his name-calling into words.

Now I jump down from my truck thinking: why is faggot the worse name these white boys can think of to call me? Do they not even know the word dyke? “You can’t tell me why you like bush, you can just call me names?’ I enquire, still trying to engage in a conversation.

He’s really backing up swiftly now and silent, making his exit as he said what he needed to say. But I haven’t.

“What, is democracy too hard for you to handle?” I ask, my voice rising so he (and everyone else standing around pretending they’re not watching) can hear me. He continues to ignore me but the other folks are now staring hard, so I trail him across the parking lot yelling now.

“You want to live in a dictatorship, eh? And you want to be the dictator, call me names, and tell me what I can and cannot say?”

He’s ignoring me and high-tailing it back to his tractor-trailer. I yell one last time for everyone to hear: “What, democracy too hard for you to handle?”

I like that and decide I’m going to use it as often as I can on this trip, or as often as I have to! as I continue to head to Illinois. I get 5 yeahs and no other nays or f.u.’s!!!