small.town.girl

This past weekend, my college roommate came for a visit. She comes from the very liberal land of Washington DC, where she is a social-worker-in-training. When she visits, sometimes I am reminded just how insane PA can actually be.

The night we were discussing her impending visit, I noticed a truck in a parking lot covered in bumper stickers. The most notable of these stickers? “I’ll forgive Jane Fonda when the Jews forgive Hitler.” Yeah, seriously. What the…?

However, the real WTF moment was while we were out at the bar. Now Jill and I have always been a bit crass; it’s just who we are. After a couple of beers at a local pub (a classier joint than the outings of our early twenties; the one bartender here puts the shamrock in your Guinness foam!), we were discussing which celebrities we thought would die this year. I mean, 2009 was a year for tragic celebrity deaths with Farrah, Michael, Patrick, Brittany, etc. 2010 has potential. First on Jill’s list was Amy Winehouse. The lady bartender overheard, and joined in our conversation. She also had Amy Winehouse at the top of her list, which made us happy and allowed her to stay in our conversation.

Big mistake.

This woman said that she wouldn’t mind seeing a certain high-ranking political figure die. I don’t even want to write it into a sentence on the internet that’s how “Holy Mother of God, are you SERIOUS?” such a statement is to me.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the Change We Can Believe In™ was too good to be true. That’s not the President’s fault. The people in the other branches of government are working hard to light the flaming hoops for him to jump through. He has a lot of messes to clean up. He’s trying his damnedest and he’s doing a pretty good job with the shitty hand he was dealt. We could be living in a nuclear holocaust by now, or at least in a world where we shoot animals from helicopters. Reacting in a very unJill and unLindsay manner, we tried our best to steer the conversation back to the Isle of Sanity. I pointed out that my friend was from the Capitol, and Jill stated that many people in her land would be very sad if anything like that happened.

The bartender backpedaled a little bit. She kind of went in to why she doesn’t like him. Apparently “naming foreign dignataries” isn’t high on her list of presidential qualifications. She would prefer someone “regular.” Like Sarah Palin.

Really? Really?!

I don’t think we even really responded. The look on our faces said it all. She tried to qualify “regularity” by saying, “or you.” In retrospect, this doesn’t make me feel much better. I don’t want to be in the same category as Sarah Palin for anything but my X chromosomes.

The conversation wrapped up after I steered it to local politics and we politely asked for our tabs. I tipped fairly generously considering she had just grouped me with the newest Fox New commentator, so maybe she will finance some education or something.

I surely hope that my friend comes back to PA after this. I’m not sure I would!