I’m hardly without sin, but, screw it.

Recently, I was sitting eating lunch in a mall food court. A pretty young latina in her 20s, maybe, was at the next table, making extremely opinionated comments about various acquaintances rather loudly to a middle-aged black lady, all in front of her even-prettier young daughter( perhaps 5 years old).
Growing more & more disgusted by what she was saying, I decided, as she was getting up to leave, to speak my mind. “For the 15 minutes that I have been sitting here,” I said, “you have been talking shit about people. You really seem like a very small-minded & judgmental woman.”. I enjoyed the look of confusion that flitted across her face, but she recovered quickly.
“You don’t know me.” she informed me, as though I had been unaware of this fact, “You don’t know my life. I’m not talking shit; what I am doing here is supporting people. So you really need to get to know me before jumping into my conversations.”.
Wishing I had a dictionary so that I could double-check the meaning of the verb ‘support’, I smiled broadly, told her she was right so I would love to get to know her, & asked if she would like my e-mail address. I truly enjoy meeting new people, after all, & I was feeling perhaps a little hypocritical after calling a stranger judgmental. While she took a moment to attempt to process what had just happened, I also assured her that I was gay & not hitting on her. Without another word, she turned to see if her daughter was ready to go.
As they walked away, her friend hung back a moment, & after checking to be sure the young “lady” was out of earshot, smiled & told me “You know, you really was right about what you said.”, then laughed softly & perhaps a little sadly before departing.

–D.R.T.Y.boi E.M.

P.S.: That pretty much made my day. X·D

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