Don't Talk to Strangers

In college my friends nicknamed me "The Walking Triumph of Ill Will" because I seemed to be a magnet for hostility from strangers.

Case in point, I live in a neighborhood populated by transsexual prostitutes. It's not something I particularly mind, except when I'm walking to Trader Joe's and one follows me in lockstep, obnoxiously nipping at my heels. There's that split-second moment of tension when I step off to the side to let them pass, and I get that "what's-your-problem-asshole" stare.

One day a tranny propositioned me from the bus stop, "Hey, honey, how YOU doin'? You wanna date?" I didn't dignify it with a response, so then I get this catty, "Oh whassup? You stuck up or something?"

Yes, that's right Ms. Thing, I'm the impolite one here. Forgive my lack of manners.

The tranny followed me for the next 3 blocks hurling epithets and threats of bodily harm. It was hard to take him too seriously, after all he wasn't going to catch me wearing 6-inch heels.

I must be the only one in my peer group who isn't wildly entertained by drag performers. Cross-dressing in itself doesn't irritate me, but conspicuous vanity and narcissism does. I know if I strutted up and down Santa Monica Boulevard bellowing, "Hey, look at me! Look at these arms! Look at this ripped stomach! You know you want this! You're all jealous of this!" I would be considered a douche. But when the trannies do it, it's FIERCE.

Clearly I'm not up to date with my etiquette.

I also seem to attract belligerent vagrants. Today I was seated at a table enjoying a chocolate croissant in the 3rd/Fairfax Farmers Market. "Is this taken?" asked the sketchy guy hovering over me.

I looked around, and there were probably plenty of other places for the guy to sit, but whatever, I was finishing up anyway. "Go ahead."

So Sketchy Guy sits and scoots his chair uncomfortably close to me, reaches into his bag for a Budweiser tall-boy, cracks it open and pours it into a glass. "Cheers!" he says, as he gulps it down. Then Sketchy Guy leans in and asks me, "How old is your mother?"

Maybe I owed him a response, but I was already halfway towards the exit. "What's the matter with you, you yuppie asshole!" he screamed after me.

If your opening line is to ask me about my mother, you're the one with the impairment, fella.

I managed to upset another vagrant with my insensitivity just a few weeks ago. I was seated at the Tommy Burger in Burbank when an unkempt guy sat down at my table without asking. "You live in L.A.?" he queried.

"Yes," I said.

"Can I get a lift there?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't help you with that."

He got incensed. "Well then give me a few dollars so I can take the bus."

That's the thing about Los Angeles, the exaggerated sense of self-entitlement extends all the way to the Valley.

I turned him down. So he sat there at the table burning holes through me with his eyes while I ate.

I bike around town for most small errands, and one day after shopping at the Beverly Center, I approached my parked bicycle to find its basket filled with a bag of popcorn and a cup of soda. So I emptied those things out and was halfway to the trashcan when this crazy guy starts shrieking and running towards me from across the sidewalk.

"Are these yours?" I asked him.

"Yeah, they're mine, asshole! Were you just gonna throw them away?"

"Well, yeah," I said, "I'm trying to leave and they're in my bike basket."

"You need to respect other people's property," the crazy jackass lectured me.

Right. Again everyone else is the victim here, and I'm the bad guy. My college friends had it wrong. I'm not a Walking Triumph of Ill Will -- it's the world that's saddled with the burden of me.