My Year of Meaningful (2011)

...when I am finding my usual stellar patience level at an all time low. Why is it that up here in tourist-land, you get the highest concentration of the biggest idiots at THIS place?? Oh thats right, it's because the lodge we're staying at is semi-expensive, meaning the "entitled types" stay here, and it's in town, instead of actually out in the bush, meaning the soft wussy types, and it's all-buffet, all-the-time, meaning overcooked meat and soggy bland EvERYTHING, so anyone with any culture or sense of culinary quality would be put off from this damn overpriced touristy cheeseball establishment!! I know the only reason we're staying here is because of the youngling, malaria, etc, and needing facilities to work from. That's our worthy excuse. Otherwise we'd be in a tent somewhere. But anyway, my grievence here is that, on the whole, IDIOTS are just plain RUDE and I'm getting ready to lose it with them.
Today I had some complete stranger, a white south african lady of leisure type with drawn-on eyebrows, come up to me & The Joolz as we are sitting on the pool deck watching the river, minding OUR own business, and proclaims she "wants more details"... Uhhh ok, I'm freakin Ghandi these days with the patience for nosey people, as it's something I knew what I was getting into from the beginning, taking the chocolate baby on and all... So I get ready for the usual politically-correct FAQ, which I expect from well-meaning white folk (not the same as the brazen and untempered locals, whom have no taboo in their culture when it comes to just throwing out a "who is the father?!" or "you cant be the mother!" in your face)... no, the PC white folk FAQ is more like "is she a Motswana?" or a little more fishing like "how long has she 'been with you'? " you know, kinda testing the waters to see how much you're comfortable with giving up. Fine & dandy with me... quite frankly I'm continually entertained by the creativity some people can come up with in terms of sticking their nose in your bidnez. I'm happy to grin and silently rate their attempts on a scale of 1-10 for flair & effort and give them the whole 9-yards of story depending on if they earn it or not. But THIS one... This woman was Somethin Else!! Her and her "quest for details" broke the mold. Bearing in mind that I am a TOTAL freaking STRANGER, gee, what a shock when I hear "can you not have your own?" come out of her mouth, along with other wee gems such as "do you plan on having more" and then further prodding into our overall family planning outlook, and announcing "she'll be too spoiled if she's an only child, you know...". I was flabbergasted. So flabbergasted I didnt even know how to respond. WTF?!? I managed to get hold of my response filter and played nicey nice on some of the more benign ones but "can you not have your own" managed to take me a good half a minute to even pick my jaw up off the floor in order to form words. Ugh.

One funny thing tho was that when Rude Lady tried to hold The Poop Machine, she growled at her, which The Kid NEVER does when meeting someone new! See, she's getting taught well by her 4-legged siblings.

I realized I am so much more accustomed to handling this stuff from a clearly uncultured Motswana check-out girl or fuel station attendant, than someone who clearly travels and earns a salary and has a career (or at least married someone with a career) and has at least HEARD of manners and political correctness. Normally it's all water and I'm all duck. But this idiot woman has forced me to put myself in "time-out" now and consider re-enrolling in Mindfulness class because I
walked away from that one feeling like someone was either (A) gonna hafta die, or (B) get their tires slashed. Bad mojo.

Ugh. Idiots.