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Around The -Ists This Week
At the Cheese Festival this weekend, on our third table of samples, we proceeded as we generally do throughout the cheese concourse: standing on the outside, reaching in with our toothpicks for a cube, and going on our way. You know, Cheese Fest stuff. But this was the day we'd encounter one special Seattle stereotype, and lo, the beast takes many forms. This version was the fiftysomething Magnolia Dad with Token Younger Wife. He was quick to inform us that there was in fact a line, and that he had stood in it for forty minutes. (Umm, good for you?) That we thought we were better than everyone else, and that our mother hadn't taught us any manners--oh no, he di'int. For the record, our mama did teach us manners. Then she went one step further and taught us to be smart enough not to WAIT IN AN OPTIONAL LINE FOR FORTY MINUTES.
Whatever, Grandpa. All that aside, it brings up a larger issue for us: Denizens of a city generally don't feel the need to stand in single-file lines. Why is Seattle so averse to the functional disorder of urban interaction? Uptight Seattleite, we beseech thee for an explanation!
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One person's "functional disorder of urban interaction" is another person's "I'm a self-important asshole who shouldn't have to wait like you nobodies and grandpas."
There is technically no line.
From behind the booth, I preferred, as many others did too, people popping in and out. Not in and standing there. That's annoying. Try and buy and/or talk, don't just stand there.
I will never stand in line for cheese or ice-cream for more than 10 minutes. It's stupid.
I was working that booth and spoke with a French Canadian from a small town about this.
It's not Seattle. It's population size. He had an annual party every year and he realized that one year it reached the magic 120 person mark and people automatically started standing in lines for the food.
It's human nature that at certain population points we'll form varying degrees of order.
I also watched "The Happening" last night, so I now know that at certain population points, plants will convince us to kill ourselves.
I'm guessing its because Seattle is mostly a suburban city still and people love their lines in the suburbs. They are waiting in them constantly. It's not about self importance, it's about the fact that its a fair and there should be no lines. Your not paying for anything, you should have done that before you entered the fair. I mean, come one people. Its one thing to stand in line to pay for a hot dog on a stick and quite another to receive the delicious artisan cheese that was paid for with your $5 donation.
Chief Sealth invented back-cuts.
Last year we almost joined one of those lines. Then one of the festival workers did her best to dispell the myth of the line and encouraged us all to just go pick, snack, and move on.
I horrified a group of people at Ivar's Salmon House during Sunday brunch by doing the same thing. Their hostility was safely passive-aggressive, however.
Again, I don't think it's a uniquely Seattle thing. You can see it in towns across the world. Hell, it's the reason towns exist.
However, the passive-aggressive hostility is pretty much a Seattle Hallmark.
http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/normative_social_influence.htm
There were something like 8 gazillion tourists in town by way of the uber-giant cruise ships. Those people in line are definitely from Milwaukee. Feel free to cut in.
is that person kind of like capitol-hill-hipster-who-passively-agressively-blogs-a-hissy-fit-instead-of-telling-other-stereotype-to-his-face-to-shut-up? you should have posted grandpa's pic.
You obviously don't know me. I said--to his face--that he didn't have to wait in that line, that we live in a city and this is how you function in society, *and* I called him "Grandpa," which his wife reaallly didn't like. And then I went on my way to a different part of the table and continued to get cheese samples. No passive-aggressiveness here; I just don't think all the back-and-forth is pertinent to the story.
But yes, getting a photo of him would've been nice.
He probably would have had you arrested.
Just curious, since you seem to think ageism is such a great thing: How would you have reacted if he called you babe, or girl, or any other sexist label?
I'm not ageist, I'm assholeist. His age merely informed what epithet I used. If he had been 16, I would've called him "kid," if he were a 40-year-old woman, I would've called her "Mom" or "cougar" (depending), if he were a 23-year-old frat guy, I would've called him "douchebag."
But how would have reacted, Babe-Girl-Secretary?
So, in pretty much every situation, you would have taken them down a peg by using an age-related epithet. Sounds pretty ageist to me. If you were truly the "assholeist" you claim to be, wouldn't "asshole" be the appropriate term for him?
With your self-righteous know-it-all attitude of "we live in a city and this is how you function in society," I'd say chimsquared knows you better than you'd care to admit.
No, Audrey just calls it as she see's it with no concern for unnecessary tact.
But that is where I will stop putting words in her mouth and speak about me.
If someone bothered to get huffy and claim there was a line they had been standing in, when in fact, there was no such line nor any indication of a line outside of people standing in line (how many times have jokes been cracked about that?!) and then proceeded to insult how my mother raised me, FUCK YES I WOULD SAY SOMETHING TO THEM.
And if my opinion of them was incorrect, then I would welcome their attempt to persuade me otherwise.
I don't think any of you actually read the post, but rather just took offense to someone making a claim that being a passive sheep and then getting huffy is just plain stupid.
Bottom line: No lines at Cheese Fest, and if you're going to stand in line and insult someone's mother, you better hope it's not Audrey.