The Restaurant Story That Made Me Who I Am Today.

Story time, as promised.

It’s February, 2020, 10:00pm. My husband and I are in what feels like hour 37 of our daughter’s dance competition, and it’s the first time I’ve gotten off my feet in hours. We just want to sit in the hotel restaurant, stare into our overpriced drinks, and wonder how we put ourselves into the position where we have to do the same thing again the next day.

We’re joined at our long table by a stranger who politely asks if she can sit there. I’m hangry, I’m deliriously tired, I don’t care if a whole family shares our table. Have at it.

As she’s still adjusting herself in her seat, she leans across the table and smiles, “Don’t you just love Obama?!”

I look up to the television I hadn’t noticed, and see Obama. I look at my husband, laughing into his fist, hanging me out to dry on my own. I look back at our guest and mumble, “hmm” before engrossing myself in the menu.

Bro, she just keeps going. “I just love the way he….and he’s so handsome….funny and intelligent…”

I kick my husband under the table. He pretends not to know me. I glare daggers at the side of his face, but my eyes are too tired, he doesn’t budge. No snuggles for you!

Her friend arrives at the table, and I briefly believe I’ll be saved! But she greets him with, “We were just talking about how great Obama is!” So I sigh. Here we go.

“Actually, I’m not a fan.”

I kid you not, she did a TRIPLE slow blink. I counted. Her eyebrows got higher every time. Welcome to the Thunderdome.

Ten minutes later, the ENTIRE restaurant (her lungs were fully functioned) has been informed that my husband and I hate immigrants, you know, because she asked if we supported Trump, though we were clear to explain that he himself is an immigrant in addition to explaining our reasoning for supporting a wall….my husband’s white privilege prevents him from understanding what black people go through, though he’s married to me, so I argued that he’s got to be at least vaguely familiar….he has me brainwashed, because, and I quote “There’s no reason for you to not like Obama or think that way unless he’s got you brainwashed!”….

This is my face. What the hell did she just say?!

My husband is no longer amused. I’ve been called a coon, a sellout, and an Uncle Tom through messages from strangers and old friends, and people behind me in the grocery store line, but he’d never seen any of it. Now his eyebrows are up and he looks like he’s going to start flipping tables, so I try to figure out how to extradite ourselves from the situation and put him back in the snuggle zone. He’s so cute when he’s angry.

But as I’m asking for the check, our table guest crosses her arms and demands, “What studio are you with? You have kids in the competition?”

This. Heifer.

She disliked my politics so much that she wanted my child to suffer. My mind was blown.

I didn’t wear my studio jacket for the rest of the competition weekend, and I was afraid to sit with my group for lunch. It was a stark reminder of the world we live in now. This woman, this black woman, saw me and decided I needed to be punished, by any means necessary, for not thinking the way I should.

After Trump’s Town Hall on October 15th, the internet was abuzz with chatter about the “nodding woman in the red mask”. Conservatives loved her enthusiasm, liberals called her a paid shill, a sellout, a token, and a plant. They demanded to know who she was. It turns out Mayra Joli was no paid shill, she was an immigration lawyer who ran for Congress in 2018.

There was no apology given. Instead, a character representing Mayra appeared on SNL (Saturday Night Live) this past weekend. She was mocked and compared to Candace Owens; what the left thinks of as a grave insult. Uh, okay.

My family was concerned with me taking this writing gig, and that restaurant scene played through my mind. The Chicks are great! The fans are great!…But then you have the trolls and the Wall of Shame. Those crazies exist, and they have a lot of free time. Sitting in their basements, stroking their bulging bellies and their cats (I don’t know why I picture them shirtless and covered in crumbs, but I do), looking for ways to ruin lives. And black conservatives are their family sized bag of cheese puffs on a two-for-one sale. They go all in.

So, for the sake of the family, I agreed to go with a pen name as long as it meant something. I thought I’d be a little sad not to write in my given name, but then I log on and see the nickname given to me by my family, and I feel a bit of pride. I hope you still feel like you know me, because no one calls me by my nickname unless we’re good friends.

The restaurant story has made me cautious, but it’s also made me very determined. There’s information to spread, there’s camaraderie to be found, and there are liberals to annoy. I’m ready to put the hair up and the fuzzy socks on, and let it all hang out. Figuratively, of course. There’s no Toobin on this computer!

Thank you all for the warm welcome.