J is for Jackass

So Daphne… we’ll call her Daphne. She works with me and is by far the most gregarious of the staff here, and typical of any “class clown” type in an office environment, she targets me as someone to have fun with. And we do. The jokes fly back and forth on a daily basis.

Over this last year and a half it does dawn on me that she probably does not have similar views as me, politically for instance, but I don’t let that concern me. She’s my client and thus I must be respectful, and on top of that, many people in my life wouldn’t score well on my personal subjective personality test - but so what? We’re all human and all have flaws. Mine are different than other peoples. No reason we can’t make the best of things together.

But yesterday there was a large immigrant family in the waiting room where I am situated (by the main entrance). So Daphne comes through on her way to lunch (and probably a quick trip to the liquor store nearby) and as she passes she flashes me her cell phone and says, “What do you think of this? You get it, right?”

On her phone is the image of the Canadian flag but it has been altered to contain the words: FIT IN or FUCK OFF.

Very disappointing.

I look her in the eye without expression and shrug my shoulders.

“You get it,” she says. “I know you do.”

“It doesn’t resonate with me,” I say. She smirks and departs.

I don’t know if she knows what resonate means. I’m realizing that she might be an even duller tool in the shed than I’d assumed.

It’s rather sad how many cowering racists see me and imagine I must be a safe audience to reach out to for… kinship.

But it only ever happens when I’m in uniform. I must look vaguely military or something, and thus a real Canadian. In fact I had just had my hair cut quite short before this happened.

Fit in… or Fuck off…

I wish the instructions had been clearer. Fit in to what? Our culture? We have many cultures here. My own is nothing like Daphne’s. I presume she means her culture and not mine.

So what she’s saying is… Either get a job you hate and watch the clock all day and then rush home and get drunk every night and raise a kid to be a dull and lazy non-contributor in regular trouble with the police - and oh yeah - be a non-creative unthinking pea-brained racist… or else… I will insist that you must “fuck off” using an anonymous rudimentary internet picture-page that Uncle Jesse crafted between reality show binges.  

What must I do to ward off these morbid unwelcome advances? An “I’m a security guard, not a moron” sign would surely be ineffective not to mention unsavory from the client’s perspective.

You know - some guards wear their little military pins and medals on their breast pocket. Maybe I should get some pins and wear them. Pins that represent diversity? Like multiple religious icons, a rainbow… It’s a thought.